Okay, my body hurts but I'm alive... again. Looking around I saw complete and utter destruction. The land was on fire, stone and rock turned into lava burning whatever they touched. Dragon was patiently waiting for master, sword and shield were a good few metres away. Jaxx was next to the dragon Seb was running at the dragon and oh. SHIT. After getting up, I ran and pickup my gear whilst still heading towards the dragon. The dragon was on the ground like a cat and was not paying attention to me at all. Thank whoever for that. I quickly reached my max speed and then Aldermer's rider came out of the cave covered in blood and then cast some kind of spell. I'd never seen it before nor was I aware of a such thing as an insta cast spell. The spell fired and a green blob was headed very quickly my way. It hit, very hard but I was still running to the High Elf bastard. He looked surprised I was still running even after being hit by whatever that was.
Drawing his sword, he attempted to cut me in half. It didn't work as I was about 2-3 metres above him and then I came swiftly down and tried, emphasis tried, to stab his back as I came down. It pierced the armour but didn't break the skin.
Level Difference too high to cause damage. All stats too high to cause damage. Recommend godly abilities
"Void storm." I shouted out after reading Samuel's advice. I was very surprised when it did something. By something I mean, it started destroying the High Elf before his defence against magic or whatever kick in and protected him completely.
"Darkness spears." Yep, if quality don't work quantity probably will. The scene before my eyes was expected, thousands upon thousands of spears made of darkness appear, try to impale target, they fail and then disappear, then another one appears and the cycle continues.
Whilst I was engaged in combat with the rider, Jaxx and Seb were fighting a fire breathing beast. I couldn't help much besides give words of encouragement and throw darkness swords at the dragon’s wings, specifically the joints, keeping the guy grounded. The Duke started casting another spell, ignoring everything happening around him. Thinking quickly, I threw my sword at his head.
You know, if you didn't have Godly Swordsmen, Godly Sword thrower and didn't use TMG sword. You'd have done no damage. Instead you dealt 100.
That would've kill me. Level differences are not good to be on the receiving end of. You know, most people would be fucked if they'd thrown their weapon at their opponent. I'm not because TMG's items allow their user to summon them back so, sword come back. And now it's in my hand. Now, back to killing the Duke. Throw sword. Call sword. Throw sword. Call sword. And he's still casting. No, he's done.
So, he finished casting and guess what the spell does. It opens a portal at what I assume is either the capitol or a large military base. How do I know this, a couple thousand armed humanoids charging out screaming defend the duke or for the empire or for the emperor, the usual.
"VOID STORM!" I did not panic. Definitely didn't panic. Yeah, I panicked. So, the original void storm was only a couple metres across and maybe 5-6 metres above the ground, firing out grey lightning that removes whatever it touches from existence, this one was a lot bigger than that. Scores of enemies disappeared as they were touched by metre thick and kilometre long lightning bolts. This is gonna be bad for my mental health. Forgot to mention, God abilities cost mental strength and concentration, the better it is the more it costs. Might as well destroy my mental state if imma do this right.
"SUMMON DEMON LORD! ECLISPE THE SUN! TEMPORARY ALLY IMMORTALITY!" The last one I made up on the spot.
"PALADINS CHARGE!" I hope the paladins heard that.
"TO BATTLE!!!!!!!!" Yeah, they did. Not sure how though. I mean, shouldn't they be dead, the Duke covered in blood indicates quite strongly in that direction.
The Demon lord was engaged in combat with a good portion of the soldiers fighting side-by-side with the paladins. Jaxx and Seb were still trying to kill Aldermer and I and the Duke engaged in single combat. The Duke used summoned weapons against me, swords and axes namely, I used TMG's stuff. Much higher quality. We circled each other as the tide of the battle ebbed and flowed in either sides favour. I threw my sword at the Duke's head remembering that I could ONLY do damage that way. He was hit but charged at me and nearly sliced me in half diagonally from left shoulder to right hip. Moving back so it just grazed past my armour, I summoned my sword and threw it at him again, narrowly dodging it, he once again charged at me this time with some wicked looking axes. Raising my shield to block they tore it from my arm leaving me somewhat defenceless. Thinking quickly, I said, "Imbue divinity." The intent of that was to imbue some divine essence into my sword, but I don't know if it worked. Summoning and then swinging my hopefully imbued sword, I dealt a long and deep cut upon the Duke's chest nearly getting his neck.
"Archers! FIRE ON THE MERCENARY!!!!" He shouted loudly, soon followed by thousands of arrows aimed at me. None did damage but they distracted me from my duel and was dealt the loss of me bottom right arm from the elbow. Roaring in pain and fury, mostly pain, I entered into melee ranged and swung my fist and subconsciously, my elbow really, at the Duke missing him with my fist but doing massive amounts of damage to him with my highly acidic and poisonous blood. From the looks of it, my blood is much more acidic than a xenomorphs, from AVP or alien. My accelerated healing was starting to clog the blood flow but not before I punch him, if it could be called that, with my elbow.
"FUCK!" The fiery pain suddenly ignited as my elbow hit his head, killing him in seconds.
For killing a level 50, yes I'm sure, opponent using only your own abilities and no one else's assistance (technically you did get assistance but what you did get was either not useful in the battle or was with the intent of killing you) you've reached level 30.
"Damn."
3 Days later...
We've finally won. It was a military base that housed all these bastards, not their capitol, they surrendered when they'd lost about a third of their number and realised we still weren't damaged much a miracle really. That's also when the dragon was killed by Seb, Jaxx, Me, Christian even Joe.
Looking over the numerous soldiers I voice projected, that's how we do it in cadets, "GATHER ALL YOUR SUPPLIES AT YOUR BASE AND BRING THEM HERE, THEN DISMANTLE THE BASE AND SET IT UP HERE. GO NOW!!!!" They were really scared. I think, I smell piss and shit, but it could be from the corpses that were still left from the battle. "AND SOMEONE CLEAN THESE BODIES UP!"
Going over to Joe, stepping down from Aldermer's corpse, I asked the question that'd been burning since I'd come back to my senses, "What happened? Is Marodon alive? How many did we lose?" I realised the 1st question would probably answer the 2nd but, you know, somewhat panicking.
"Marodon... might be dead or he's with the injured. We suffered a lot of causalities between 500 to 600, that's all I can remeber for now I'll tell you more when I remember." He said somewhat casually as he always does.
"Ok, not good. What made the Duke turn back."
"The Duke turned back because he was slowly losing, wave after wave of level 45-50 enemies will do that to you."
"Understandable. Seb! Get over here. Jaxx you also get over here." I think they've gotten used to waking up at 06:00, so onto the next part of the plan. Just gotta wait for Seb and Jaxx to get here.
2 minutes later....
"Took you long enough." Was what I said as they came into view.
"What do you want Heath?" Seb asked.
"What's the good AAFC drill manual?"
"The 1997 Drill Manual. Why do you want to know?" He asked very confused.
"Because, I want an army. An army needs discipline. Drill breeds discipline. Also, it looks good."
"When do you want me to start?" He sounded very excited.
"Give me a bit. Samuel, how much does the 1997 AAFC Drill and Ceremonial Manual Cost?"
1 DP
"Buy it."
1997 AAFC Drill and Ceremonial Manual acquired
"Okay. I've got a fair while before I need to do something." Entering deep thought, I let my imagination run rampant. Then I got bored of that and asked the infinitely wise entity for help, " Hey Samuel, you got anything I can do?"
WELCOME, TO THE QUEST SYSTEM!
Here you can accept quests, put up quests all for monetary compensation whilst sating your boredom. I forget the rest of this advert but she'll be right
"Anything for raise an army?"
Quest System
Quest Name: Raise an Army I
Quest Giver: The Mortal God
Quest Description: Raise an army with at least, 200 frontline combatants, 150 archers, 10 mages, 50 healers (magical or mundane) 30 sappers, 1 General and 250 supports (blacksmiths, alchemists, enchanters, etc)
Quest Rewards: 15,000 DP, 1,000 exp
Accept?
"Wait. There's xp in this world? Why haven't I seen any of this?"
Because your generally weak, higher the level the more details, freedom and privileges they will get. Accept quest?
"Fine. Accept."
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
You've unlocked the 'ARMY SYSTEM.' It's still in testing, expect changes.
Let's see...... This system will allow you to (inserting what system does into beta system template) RAISE AND MANAGE ARMIES which is good. It includes features like, BUYING AND PLACING BUILDINGS IN YOUR MILITARY STAGING GROUND, 4x STYLE COMBAT IN REAL-TIME, ALL NEW RAIDS. I get paid to do this.
For beta testing the ARMY SYSTEM, you get triple exp from the ARMY SYSTEM, 1 gold per KILL whilst testing the ARMY SYSTEM, ALL SOLDIERS UNDER YOUR COMMAND GAIN 1.5 TIMES THE EXP and a shitty tutorial.
"... Somehow I'm not surprised." I said in my 'really mate' voice.
"Start shitty tutorial." I said exasperated.
So pretty much, you spend resources, no DP because you're a false god, to make, modify and upgrade buildings, the store'll have slaves and people to buy. Slaves are cheap, inexpensive and bad labour, but regular people are more expensive, usually require a contract because they think their good, and are generally better labourer's, soldiers, etc. So, to start you'll choose your military staging ground, eventually it can become a Star Fortress, obviously you gotta get to space first. You'll pick up the rest fairly quickly.
....
.....
....
...
..
.
?????
??
Aaaahhhhhh. Well, the integration world has completed its job, one of your members have finally reached 100% integration, Seb, well on to the actual world.
"........... Samuel. Are you telling me, we went through MONTHS OF FIGHTING AND SLAUGHTERING OF SOMEWHAT INNOCENT PEOPLE AS A FUCKING TUTORIAL???!!!!" The fury I directed at Samuel was almost tangible.
Yeah. But they weren't somewhat innocent, nor were they people. I controlled them and used them to teach you in a non-direct and at the same time, very direct many. Give me a bit........................................
Sorry for the wait but I can explain everything now. Sort of.
1. The world you'll be going to is twice the size of this one. Thus, very fucking big. It won't run out of resources (Metals not trees and plants) so piss 'em up the wall as much as you like.
2. You WON'T be entering as a group but you will instead enter the world in a sort of staggered out way. Leader first then whoever a couple hundred years later. Can wait to have more than one person arriving at a time. This is due to the Army System.
3. Your goal is to set-up an empire and/or become a God, false, demi or actual in the case of Heath.
So to start, Heath as the leader you will pick the starting location and as an added bonus, you'll start when all the beasts and plants are at their most malleable. By that I mean the beasts will be able to breed with any other beast and will adapt quickly. In other words, those beasts and plants will not be around for long, less than a month, that world's so a couple Earth years, so what you wanna do is either keep them alive and like that for as long as possible or quickly use them to create your race that you will be commanding for however long. Since you guys get special treatment, I'll give you some options for your starting species, it's better than starting on your own, I promise you that. Now then, any questions?
My fury was temporarily put aside in light of this development. "Hhhhmmmm.... hhhhmmmm.... Samuel can you teleport us to another location all together?" I was then in a room reminiscent of what we first encountered. Continuing, "Okay guys, wait what is Locky doing here?"
"I'm part of your party, Heath." He said, somewhat aggravated.
"Yes, but you tried to kill me after trying to undermine me, I have trust issues here."
"Heath, man, you got paranoid playing Starbase Orion with us, what advantage does Locky gain in killing you." Christian said trying to keep me from attempting to disembowel Locky. Also, Starbase Orion pretty good game considering it's iOS, Sci-fi 4x game, 4x stands for eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, eXterminate. So what Christian is talking about is the fact that when I was playing with Joe, him and Jaxx, I got REALLY paranoid as when you speak privately, it comes up with the message for all players, [Insert Player Name] whispered to [Insert Other Player Name], or something like that causing me MASSIVE paranoia.
".............. xp." That was all I could come up with and I sort of said that in a questioning tone whilst it really isn't a question.
"Fair enough but, are you worth that much xp?" He's good.
".... No. *Depressed sigh* Okay, I'll tolerate your existence Locky. Now then, where do we wanna start?" Try to breeze over the guy who tried to kill me.
"A forest." Christian said, I kinda expected that.
"I don't really care." Jaxx is always like that.
"Somewhere with a lot of metals." I see where Seb's coming from.
"Near the sea." Joe said.
"Maybe we should check the map first. Might be smart." This is why Locky's useful. But he couldn't be a little nicer to us at least.
"That is a good point. Samuel?" There were 10 different continents arrayed out in front of us, like a hologram. One continent looked like a crab on one side and had a few different islands around it. Good in some of the later civilization stages. Another was a lot of fucking small circular island with a horseshoe or fortune cookie shaped island dominating the centre. Some of those small islands were connected with land bridges allowing only one entry into the main island by sea. A decent candidate for a long time. The next was a rough circle with smaller circles around it. Seems really good especially since the rough circle was much larger than the previous continents. This next one, not what I wanted. Big, yes but it was all together with some tiny islands, in comparison to it, scattered around it. Nowhere for retreating, nowhere to conduct weapons tests. But being all together it just SCREAMED 'lots of fucking nations' not what I want. This one was two continents connected by a land bridge that got really thin, I could fortify that and tax merchants, BUT I would be a massive target and it'd only be useful for a short while. I first thought it was some kind of animal but no, it's a continent, not a very good one at that, just so weird. Well, that one resembles gills, misshapen gills but gills nonetheless. Circle, surrounded by circles attached by lines, defendable, but generally impractical. Ok, the circles are fucking annoying now, this 'continent' is literally circles around circles, not many but big circles. The final continent was squares orbiting squares, better than circles though.
"Everyone made their choices?" I was met with nods and yeahs.
"I like the rough circle with smaller circles." I said and Joe and Jaxx did as well.
Christian said, "I see why you like it but I prefer the fortune cookie one. Wouldn't mind too much having the rough circle though." Wise words.
"Could we see the mineral and actual images of these continents?" Locky asked.
The most mineral rich was the rough circle but it didn't have much in the way of trees or vegetation, wouldn't take too much to change it. I've got a plan.
"Samuel, show me the world." The hologram changed from a sort of slideshow to a spherical non-existent object, I don't know what you'd call it, anyway there were another two landmasses, one at the North and one at the South, I don't really wanna describe the circles anymore. I'll refer to the continents by number, 1 being the crab and 10 being the squares. 10 was North-West of the equator and fairly close to the North pole, it's fairly cold at the top but warmed up a few degrees every couple hundred kilometres South. at its warmest it was only slightly above 0 degrees, obviously in Celcius. To its east a fair distance away was 6 and 2, both were further away from the pole but had a fair amount of vegetation but little in the way of minerals. 4 was only just above the equator and had fairly high temperatures, and had a lot of vegetation a few hundred metres inland which died out leaving a desert in the centre. a lot of minerals and the like in the desert, gonna kill more than its fair share of expeditions. 5 had its land bridge on the equator at the place where i'd tax merchants, it's top half had large-ish cut in it, perfect for ships, to my untrained eye. The top half had little wood or minerals but it's bottom half, absolutely covered in trees the land bridge was surprisingly lush, not ridiculously so, but you wouldn't have to struggle too much to make it through. 7 was barren in all aspects and up North it could almost be a part of it. 9 was fairly close to the South pole and was just a winter paradise, a lot of stone but not much else. 8 was just on its own in the Northern hemisphere, west of 10 it had a decent abundance of everything. 1 was frozen over down South, no minerals to speak of and it can't grow vegetation. 3, my favourite, was South-West of 5 not very far and firmly in the Southern hemisphere. You couldn't dig 2 meters without encountering minerals, like gold and other precious metals but it had a little vegetation up North and a little along the Eastern coast but mostly desert.
"Okay, if we take 3 we can settle in the North-East and create some small boats, load 'em up and send them to five to cut more trees down have 'em transport the wood back build more and expand inland." I had it worked out perfectly.
"Heath, which ones 3 and which ones 5?" Christian and Locky asked me at about the same time.
"Aaaahhhh, 3's the rough circle and 5 is the hour glass, thing." I said quickly explaining my thoughts.
"Could work. Still that distance would need some nice waters to cross."
"Samuel how many moons does this planet have?" I asked this because i remember, that Sanghelios had 2 moons and that the Sangheili had to brave the erratic and treacherous waters.
1 that'll affect the waters, but another 6 that just look pretty.
"Okay, I think we'll take 3, right about there." I said pointing at the North-East corner. I was met with agreements.
Done.
Now, what racial shit do you want? Better you describe it to me.
"So what would it take to get a caste system like the forerunners had?"
A bit but shouldn't take that much of your benefits. Specifically, yours no one else's.
"Okay, would I start off with all the castes or just one or two."
I'll give you two the rest you'll need to add and discover as time goes on.
"Okay, good. What would take to add levels to each individual caste? Like uuummmm you know evolution, like uuummm, so for example a warrior, start off as the most basic of whatever we call 'em, then chooses the warrior path, becoming a warrior, what would it take to add evolutions and levels to each path, so the warrior becoming bigger and stronger, more hand-eye co-ordinated having a full-blown evolution every, say 50 levels?" If you can't tell I'm not good at explaining shit.
It'd use up the rest of your benefits, but it's doable.
"Okay. Guys since I'm going in first, I'll choose what castes to have first, if that's alright with you guys. Also, maybe get something to help with the water and sailing, also really harsh conditions." I think the mental fuckery is ending now.
"Yeah sure, Heath." Or variants of that is all I heard, even from Locky.
"Okay, life-shaper caste and warrior caste." I said somewhat smugly
Many hours later....
So your choices are,
Caste system with some degree of evolution (Heath)
2 Caste paths already unlocked (Heath)
Top-tier genetics (Jaxx)
Excellent Swimmers (Joe)
3D combat experts (Seb) (Granted another because that's not very useful)
Excellent Commanders (Seb)
Rapid breeders (Locky)
More can be unlocked through purchases from the DP store. The Demon God a.k.a The Mortal God will decide upon their appearance, at least the initial path appearance.
"Okay, let's see, I'm a tank and a bit of DPS, my job as a tank is to protect the backrow, so healer and the glass cannon a.k.a Joe and Locky. Logically we should have Joe come in second, but as I lack long ranged attacks and we don't have access to mages, it would be most beneficial if Locky came in second, if nothing else, a shit ton of fire power. Any complaints?"
"Why me? I tried to kill you." Locky asked. Good question.
"Probably the sort of realization I killed you, I'll give you another chance, but our empire is gonna be a dictatorship and have slavery AND BE CAPITALIST!" I am firm capitalist.
There were a few communist jokes, but communism CANNOT prevail.
"Welp let's go."
"Ok Locky, Joe, Christchurch, Jaxx, you will be heading off to many different lands under the guidance of your older selves. Younger me you'll be doing whatever then heading off under my guidance." And before I could protest against myself, I had landed on a beach. Nice view of the sea, and arrayed out behind me, was a couple hundred humanoids. I say humanoids as they weren't human, too tall and had horns. They had various skin tones ranging from a sort of darker white, still I'd call it white though, all the way through to, as my Dad calls, blue-black, wearing very primitive pelts to cover themselves. And in front of the couple hundred were two very different individuals. One clearly male the other female. The male was a bit over 2.5 metres by my estimate, muscular 2 impressive horns jutting straight out from his head and a spear in hand, the butt planted firmly in the yellow sand. The female wasn't very tall maybe only 160cm and held nothing but a smile and her hands in front of her. Sort of creepy in my opinion.
I looked down at myself and saw I was also wearing the same pelts as everyone else before me was. Not terrible grand, but it'll do. Seemed to come from a wolf judging by the grey fur. The tree line behind the humanoids, I'm gonna guess are called demons still haven't checked, was sparse with various trees and shrubs but I'm really gonna need those boats soon because... this won't last for very long. If I knew how to breed plants I probably could make them multiply quickly but alas I don't.