The one who stepped onto the stage was Formless. 

As a tropical elf with her chameleon skin and the webs for swimming between her fingers and those strange milky eyes she looked less human than most orc characters. Her build had optimised the thief build for the race, but when it came to guild battles her fraction mostly acted as spies, unlike Cassandra who led the Assassins. The skills were not that different really, it was just that the play style was so different that it made sense to make two separate groups.

Anyway, Formless took a crystal from Guardian and a video of the countryside showed up, with some of our air corps showing up around the edges occasionally. There was the ex Holy city Cassandra turned into her headquarters, the golden plains where large farms and huge fields were prevalent, the mountain ranges where we went dragon and gryphon hunting. 

"As you can see our territory is here, including all the...uhm...population. Wild animals and other creatures, including ruins full of undead and cave systems as well as other dungeon areas we checked are still where they used to be. Respawning has apparently ceased for wild animals, even the magical types, while undead reassemble themselves after a while. We have only tested this in three low level dungeons so far, but our plan is to watch these three caves for future development." Formless started her speech before the backdrop of scenes from the raids.

"Several low level members we took with us have experienced level up when they went to sleep after these three experiments. One person died due to carelessness, but revival with a spell worked as usual, no loss of experience. So aside from respawning enemies and the lack of a status window game mechanics seem to remain largely intact."

There was a general sigh of relief at that bit of info. After all, nobody would want to go adventuring if there could be death rates all of a sudden. 

"We are in contact with several leaders among the population who requested meetings with their rulers, but as far as we could see they have begun solving problems independently as well. I would suggest we keep these Skyforge natives unter surveillance and ensure friendly relations since, as independent personalities, their power is not inconsiderable in some cases."

Voices exploded everywhere around us at the realization of what that meant. The NPCs of Skyforge were a pretty mixed bag. The mountain hunter villages could have average levels above 300, some elite units in kingdoms we never paid much attention to had levels around 600 while a few special NPCs had been divines or real high level characters. There were no raid bosses in Skyforge, but my academy had several Professors at level 900. Compared to me and quite a few others in this roo  that was not that strong, but...the rest of the guild? And if one took our whole territory into consideration...we had kind of been collecting territories. There had to be hundreds of thousands in the lower high level range! My brain supplied details regarding my personal territories and the powerful ones that belonged there...um.

Setting aside the fact that I suddenly far too much about things I had not had any clue about until a short time ago...could I abdicate and shove the responsibility to somebody else?

I looked at Aurelia. Aurelia looked at me. Then we glanced at Guardian. 

Victoria, Witchchild, Aurelia and me held about 90% of our territories. By the way, to make the roleplaying factor more interesting every territory had to have an owner, the guild itself could not own them. That was make betrayals and such a thing, spice up the political aspect. Never happened to us after most territories had been transferred to us girls from the guild leadership, which was why we kept doing it until long after Guardian and Donny had calmed down, but...what were we supposed to do about them now?

Taxes had always gone to the guild with Guardian as Administrator, yet just sitting there and waiting for taxes to come in wouldn't be enough in a world full of real people. I had 31%, Aurelia 26%, Victoria 28% and Witchchild had 5% according to the statistic shown on the stage. The last 10% were mostly special territories such as really pretty Mountains, my Academy, Castles, small City States and other places that served as a private base or home for people in our guild when we were still playing a game.

I had the most because just after we started Cassandra gave me almost all of hers, which was not all that much compared to what we got later. She kept the Holy City that became the ex Holy City later.

Maybe I could give them back with interest?

I glanced at Cassandra and...er...no, she was glaring at Victoria already. I had apparently been slower than some others.

The buzz in the background calmed down when Formless whistled like a shepherd's boy.

All eyes were on her, with only a few whispered discussions in the background.

"As I was saying, the local leaders would like their heads of state to get in contact. The current ownership structure is a mess so we will need to swap some of them around and restructure to make things more convenient."

Formless pointed towards the map projected into the air on the stage. It was a map of our territories.

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There were blue patches, green ones as well as red ones and a few black pieces. White points were spread around everywhere, especially along beaches, in the mountains and in secluded valleys as well as along rivers and several spots in the desert.

"Territories with less than 25.000 inhabitants, which means all the white parts, can stay with the owners who have them now we believe as those are mostly home bases. Now...Witchchild, nothing against you but...do you want to keep your counries?"

The bronze skinned human mage, specialised in conjuring, shook her head quickly. 

Formless nodded at her, then turned to the three remaining girls among the guild leaders with lots of territories...I kind of wished this did not include me.

"In that case I would suggest we use the geographical layout to split our lands into three parts, with all individual territories  in a sector going to one of our queens. At the moment have one very large island and one that's slightly smaller. The small one should go to Aurelia...uh...why are you called Aurelia suddenly?"

Formless stood on the stage with a puzzled expression for a second before he blinked, shrugged and continued. Nobody else really reacted. It was just a name. Weirder things had happened.

"As I was saying, the smaller Island should go to Aurelia since the majority of the population consists of dark elves." 

The smaller Island lit up silver. Small was relative though. Considering the size...it was about as big as Russia. Skyforge had billions of players and nobody wanted dungeons full of other players and pretty landscapes with thousands of people running around looking for the last remaining fox before they respawned. So the game was massive, with lots of uninhabited or sparsely settled landscapes. There was only one server for the whole world so of course it had to be big.

"The second Island is about three times as large. Its inhabitants are of many different races and the political landscape is a wild mix of nomadic clans, medieval style kingdoms, merchant oriented city states and more. My suggestion would be to give the steppes, sparsely settled coastlines, mountains and deserts..." The parts that were the closest to the other island, as well as the desert in the middle of the huge island and quite a bit of the land in the east and north lit up. About two thirds of the land. That should be mine then? If so that would be great. There weren't that many people there. "...to Victoria since her beast tamer class and her dragon rider units would be ideal to get around in the terrain."

Damn.

"The heavily populated but far more civilised environment of the remaining lands has a lot of high elves in higher social positions since the race tends to be at the center of culture, with architects, artists, mages and other similar occupations being prevalent. A high elven queen who is a divine enchanter would therefore be easier to accept as a ruler for the local population, I believe."

Yeah, well, that was well thought out for something they had thrown together within a day, but...really?

"The designated queens will just be representatives for the guild there, so don't look at me like I just killed your puppy."

Thank god!

"I would have sicced my bees on you if you told me to play ruler for the rest of my life around here." The sweet voice was melodious and pleasant enough that people nearly missed what she said. Victoria's voice had apparently changed as much as several others, but hers seemed to be influenced by her skill.

The following votes had most in favor of the new structure, so the three of us had to give in. It was just showing our faces on occasion, after all. There were lots of people among our advisors and other guild members who were mostly civ game addicts and played Skyforge only on occasion so throwing that problem on them seemed a prety good idea.

"I will put up descriptions of the kingdoms somewhere around here and let people who want to help develop the places sign up for the management teams tomorrow!" I did not waste time to get rid of the responsibility, of course. I really didn't want to end up as an eternal project manager. I would rather enchant items and take a look around this new world. "That should be okay, right Guardian?"

"Good idea. The country management teams can work with the overall economic and social development team to ensure efficient government in out territory in the future." Guardian seemed pretty happy with it, so another vote was called and the new structure accepted.

And then, finally, the new world!

Formless took a new crystal and projected the view of a tropical island with indistinct shapes in what appeared to be hollow trees used as boats, pusged ahead with long sticks around the coast. The dragon flew closer to reveal human like people. They looked different from those in Skyforge however. Softer and rounder in their features.

Next there was a larger piece of land. Whether it was a large Island or...well our Islands were essentially as big or bigger than continents in the real world. Anyway, the larger piece of land seemed uninhabited at first glance. Wild animals were abundant in a thick rainforest, but if there were settlements or dungeons then this quick survey would not reveal them yet.

"This is what we found to the southeast. Our air forces had to turn around soon after to return to our territory in time."

Next, a vast field of ice filled the video. They had found a settlement of people living in tents made of some kind of leather or something similar there. They, too, were fishing. The picture moved further along the icy coast. It suddenly ran into a part where land continued in an L shape. Flying south again a needle forest became visible after vast, nearly lifeless planes with nothing but animals resembling bears, wolves, elks and smaller things that were not discernible from the distance. A little further south, where forest, coast and mountains met, there was a small fortress made of stone and wood, with something resembling vegetable gardens and what might be small, crooked fields in a different season. 

"These are giants. One of our thieves got close enough to take a better look." 

Indeed, the perspective changed. Judging by the way things looked like a normal human would only go to their knee. The little fortress itself as well as the trees in the forest, prey the had caught and some winter apples the giant ate made the size of the giant seem like a normal standard in this part of the world.

That had been the north and northwest. Next...

The east contained more giants. It might even be the same continent. We got to see giant farming communities, cities and something that looked like a wizard's tower. Over there we were the small ones, it seemed. 

"This was all we have found so far. The rainforest earlier was of a size that would suggest everything in this world is far larger than we are."

So here we were the little folk. That was...a strange thing to realise.