A man that Nathan would guess was in his late forties, who’d apparently snuck up on them while getting his complementary ale, stepped up past Nathan and settled by the bar. He had a thin distinguished face, with a short and unimaginative haircut with some gray in it. He was dressed in fitted linen pants and shirt beneath a light brown wool cloak. He had the hood down and the cloak open, so Nathan could see a knife tucked into his leather belt. He looked the part of a frontier man, but not one who spent the days in the wild. That was especially made clear by the small reading glasses that rested on his nose.
He gave a small nod and a smile to Ollie, who nodded back, clearly familiar with the man. “Allow me to introduce myself. I am Bruce. Bruce deNile. I am sorry to interrupt, but I couldn’t avoid overhearing your discussion, and it seems to me there is a simple solution. Clones!”
He took a sip of his ale to let his comment sink in. Nathan thought he could see where this was going, but Ollie didn’t. “I am not sure I follow...”
“Have you noticed an increase in travelers lately? Perhaps new faces that has recently shown up from seemingly nowhere, like me or Eclipse here?” he asked.
“Now that you mention it...” Ollie answered cautiously.
“That is obviously just a coincidence,” he said as he winked to Nathan, “but something we – or rather you – can take advantage of. When I said earlier that I want the best for this village and its people, you said that I should prove it. Well, now I can. Many of the new arrivals are eager for adventure, given the right encouragement, and while they might not be very experienced, they are clones and thus expendable. Why don’t you let me try to organize a group of volunteers that are willing and able to remove this goblin problem? Even if we fail, we should be able to reduce their number. And if we succeed... well... problem solved. It’s a win-win. All you and the village need to do is to provide a fitting reward, and perhaps some basic equipment and weapons. Up front. Considering lives are at stake, that shouldn’t be much trouble, should it?”
Ollie looked back and forth between the two players, his face a big question-mark. “That... could work, I suppose, depending on how big a reward you expect. The army wouldn’t help for free, so we have some leeway if we can resolve this without them. But I cannot make a decision on this alone. I need to speak with the village counsel.”
“Sure. Keep in mind that the goblins can attack at any moment, though, so the sooner we have an answer, the better. As for reward, I don’t presume to tell you how much to offer, but to recruit the right group I think 10 silver per person and perhaps a weapon of their choice from the store next door would be sufficient.”
“I don’t think we can offer that much, but I will relay your suggestion to the counsel. We will speak later.” Ollie picked up the map, nodded his farewell, and had a quick word with one of the bar girls before he walked out the door.
“That went rather well, I think,” Bruce said as he watched the big man walk away. “Wouldn't you agree? I assume you are in? I could need your help finding the camp.”
Nathan took a big gulp of his ale. It really was quite good. “I’m not even sure what just happened. Then again, a two-days walk to Fort Whatever was not really how I wanted to spend my time here, and I didn’t like the look of those goblins. Yeah, I’m in.”
“Excellent! Good man!” he said as he patted Nathan on the shoulder. “You look like you can handle yourself as well, although looks can be deceiving here, I suppose. Me, I’m not much of a fighter, sadly.”
“Yeah? Based on your clothes you have done quite well for yourself in the few hours the game has been live.”
“Not really much of an achievement, unfortunately. I decided to get a small head-start and bought one of the cheaper starting packs. That gave me a short tutorial related to my class or path or whatever it is called, and also some starting gear. After the tutorial I was teleported here, which was deemed a suitable village,” Bruce explained. “The gear wasn’t all that much. The clothes are of good quality, and the satchel is amazing, but the only thing of real value is the glasses. Here, inspect them.”
Bruce took off his glasses and held them in front of Nathan so that he could easily inspect them.
[Stylish glasses]
Rare Item - Accessory
+1 Charisma when interacting with NPCs for bureaucratic purposes
4/4 durability
Neat frameless glasses that give you the trustworthy look of someone who always reads the documentation when given the choice.
Nathan scratched his head. “That... They are cool and all, but aren’t they of a very limited use?”
Bruce smiled knowingly. “Not for me. My goal is to run a village -hopefully this village- and build it into something greater. I think these will be of great help.”
“You’re trying to take over for Ollie? Not sure I would want him as an enemy, personally...”
“Me neither, but that is the other advantage of the starter pack. The reason I was transported here and the reason this village is ideal, is that Ollie doesn’t really want to lead it. I’ve already discussed this with him at length, and he is happy to just run the inn and leave the village to someone else. But not just anyone. First, I have to prove myself to the village and the village elders. Organizing this excursion should help in that regard... if we succeed.”
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“Killing some goblins is all it takes to take over a village? Seems I'm on the wrong path.”
“Hah, I doubt it, but it is a good start.”
Nathan decided to change the topic. “I want to discuss the raid or whatever more in a bit, but first, would you mind answering some questions about your experience so far? I’m fairly new –obviously- and you are the first player I’ve talked to so far.”
“Sure, as long as you are willing to do the same, I see no harm in it.”
“What is your path, what did you mean by starter pack, and what was the tutorial you mentioned?” Nathan recited quickly.
“Oh, wow. That was quite a lot. Let me see...” Bruce leaned back and sipped his ale while considering where to start. “I was quite clear with the... entity in the character creation mode what I wanted to do, and while I was aiming for something like Chief or Mayor or even Governor, he advised me that those paths would entail slightly different challenges. He convinced me that as a starter path, Headman was the easiest, and that if I am able to lead a village well, my path might evolve together with the village. So that’s what I did.
“But I didn’t know how to lead a village would be like in this game, so I decided I needed a tutorial. That was included fairly cheaply in one of the starter packs, so instead of spawning straight into the world, I was spawned into what seemed to be a university or school in a city far more technologically advanced then this area. I’m talking computers and everything. There I received instructions on how to use my chip to show village data etc. Basically, it’s just another interactive menu, and how to use it. They also informed me how new structures need to be manually built, although building speed will be greatly accelerated. Lastly, they educated me on how to create quests for other players, which apparently is something a lot of different positions allows you to do. They also described how you could influence what quests to get by saying the right things at the right time, like I did with Ollie earlier."
“Yeah, I noticed that. Useful,” Nathan said thoughtfully. “So, in addition to the starter pack, what other things could you buy?”
“You don’t know? They were pushing the pay-to-win options pretty hard during registration. Difficult to miss.”
“Someone else did all the account registrations stuff for me, without my involvement.”
“Sounds like there is a story there?” Bruce invited, but when it became apparent that Nathan wouldn’t oblige, he continued. “Right, so, options. As mentioned, there were different starter packs, but also some starter items that could be bought directly. Larger inventory items -like mine- for example, but also weapons and such. Nothing extreme, though. Small improvements. But the most controversial is that you can buy in-game currency. That created an outcry online. You must have seen that, at least?”
“I think I remember reading something about that”, Nathan lied.
“Yeah, lots of people complained about that, but the fact that you could sell in-game currency as well did help limit the controversy some. Some realized that despite the bad exchange rate, one could actually become rich playing the game. That is a good motivation to save up for a pod. I don’t care too much about that, though. I just want to have fun in a new fantastic world. How about you? What is your story?”
Nathan gave a brief rundown of his path, how he had spawned and how he ended up finding the goblin camp, without mentioning anything related to his build or the real world.
“You might be one of the only ones around that have some experience fighting the green ones. Most of the others I’ve talked with have just hunted some animals,” Bruce stated when he finished. “Now I’m even happier to have you along. How many do you think we need to clear the camp?”
Nathan leaned back and considered the opposition. “That really depends on how well we fight. I’m not that familiar with swords or axes so if we assume most players are par with me, I would think we would need 8 to 10. If we include someone that really know how to fight, then fewer.”
“Let’s say minimum 10, then. That shouldn’t be a problem. More and more players seem to be logging on and finding their way here.” as he spoke, he indicated two newcomers looking for a table. Their simple low-quality clothes clearly identified them as players. “We just need to actually get the quest, then we can start – ah, here we go!”
Ollie had returned and was moving through the crowd towards their table. As he reached them, he leaned on the table with both hands, and looked a bit nervously at Bruce. “Sorry, Mr. deNile, but we can’t give you what you ask. It is too much. What we can offer is 80 silvers in total, but we can’t give away that many weapons. It could potentially cost us four times as much.”
Bruce picked up his glasses that he’d left on the table and put them on. He pretended to do some quick calculations with his fingers, before focusing on the bartender. “I understand your position, but that could make it difficult to get enough people. Unless...” he stopped as if he had an epiphany. “What if only Eclipse here and myself get to select a weapon, and you provide me with 100 silver to recruit other participants? A marginal increase for you, but I believe it will be just enough so that we can deliver.”
“Hm, yes, that will be pushing it, but I think we can manage that. The weapons and half the silver up front. The rest when you return. Do we have a deal?”
“I think we do!” Bruce reached out his hand and they shook on it.
At that moment, a new quest window popped up in front of Nathan, which he accepted.
[New Quest] Remove the goblin threat
Bruce deNile has requested your help in removing the threat of a goblin camp north of the village of Last Valley. This is a group quest.
Goblin camps cleared: 0/1
Goblin leaders killed: 0/1
Reward: XP, currency and basic weapon (to be distributed by quest leader)
Olliee counted out 50 silver and gave them to Bruce. “I will let Ruth know that you will be visiting. When will you head out?”
“Hopefully we will be ready in a couple of hours and return victories before dark.”
Ollie nodded. “May luck guide your weapons. We are all counting on you.” He took his leave.
“I forgot to ask”, said Bruce when Ollie had moved away, “are you even gone be online tonight? I need a couple of hours to gather a crew, and then we can head out.”
“Yeah, I’ll probably be more on than off. I need to disconnect now and get something to eat, but I’ll be back in an hour or two.”
“Great. Let’s meet up back here after. I’ll add you as a friend and send you a message when we are ready.”
“Sounds good. And hey, thanks for getting me a new weapon. I really need one,” Nathan said as he patted the sorry excuse for an axe he had hanging from his belt as he stood up. “Could have needed the silver too, but the weapon is better.”
Bruce looked at nothing, and his fingers moved as if he was typing. “Yeah, I think it turned out –What? Oh, don’t worry. You’ll get your silver. After, though. I need the advance.”
“Yeah? Sure, no worries. See you later, then.” He moved to the menu, accepted the friend request, and logged out.