Captain Raphael looked over his 1st platoon. A few months ago, they had been lawyers and businessmen and fast food workers and janitors. Now, they were all top-rate warriors. “Alright men, advance trackers have reported several NPC villages East of here. We’re going to head to the first one. It’s got a wall, but the NPCs are supposedly friendly. No permanent player presence was spotted during the observation period, but we do have confirmation of several trade wagons moving in and out of the town every day. On my command, fall out in traveling formation and keep a close eye out for anything odd. Roger?”
The platoon, adorned in plate armor with crimson tabards and helms, gave an echoing “Roger!” back to the Captain.
Raphael took point as the squad approached the walls. They were made of stone and looked to be about ten feet high with enough room on top for two men to walk side by side. The large wooden doors that granted access were guarded by 2 small Rabbitfolk. Their profiles identified them as guard-rabbits.
Raphael approached on his horse, the soft hoofbeats hit the dirt with the same disciplined rhythm that the Captain expected out of his men. “Greetings. I am Captain Raphael, servant of High Lord Armistice of the Red Liberty. May I ask your name and titles?”
The two rabbits were a bit put off by the mans appearance. The long black hair that fell to the small of his back along with his thin dark mustache and goatee gave the face of a stereo-typical villain. His words seemed nice enough, though. The one on the left, a golden-furred older rabbit, gave a nod. “I am Guard-Rabbit Taxis for the town of Softpaw. How can I aid you, sir?”
Raphael gave a grin. “We’re looking for someone. I was hoping you could help me find him.”
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April 15th, two weeks after the second zone change since the start of the game, a Rabbitfolk messenger from Whispercreek came to Harehill. The messenger immediately asked to speak to Chief Cassil and myself.
I got to the town hall at just the right time to see the messenger talking to the Chieftain. “Whispercreek does not have the infrastructure to support this many humans.”
Cassil frowned, shaking his head. “Harehill does not either. We have nearly 100 rabbits and 50 or so humans here already. We need time to build more." As he took a sip from his cup of water, he saw me in the entrance of the hall. "AH! Mr. Lakewood! What a pleasure, sir. Please, come in.”
I approached and sat down at one of the wooden chairs along the Rabbitfolk’s meeting table. “I was told you needed to see me. You have a quest for me, Cassil?”
He shook his head, brushing his ears back and smiling. “Not quite. My friend here is from Whispercreek Village.”
I gave him a nod. We hadn’t done much of anything for Whispercreek except establish a trade route. They would slowly grow over time and we already had had our hands full with Harehill. Our plan so far was to focus on developing Harehill and the rest would come with time. “Welcome. What seems to be the issue?”
The letter-rabbit gave me a half-hearted salute before continuing. “Sir, we seem to have gotten a little out of our depth.”
“Oh?”
“A human arrived. He asked if he could seek shelter in our village. We admitted him. What he did not inform us of, were the 50 or so odd people who were with him. We don’t have the food or buildings required for a group that large. We are out of food, beer, and many of our shops have been bought out. Everyone would be overjoyed with the money if it wasn’t for the fact that we need those things too.”
“Fifty you said?”
“Yes. They are refugees from up North. They said something about creatures becoming stronger.”
I gave a grin. We needed this. “I see. I’ll head up there and we’ll come up with a plan. Perhaps we can start to fill up Softpaw or Junktail Village.”
Cassil smiled. “You know…if I didn’t know any better I’d say you were planning on taking over our villages, Mr. Lakewood.”
I tried to seem as nonchalant as possible. “How would you feel about that if I did?”
He seemed to seriously consider that for a second. “Well…this may not make a whole lot of sense, but I don’t have any strong feelings towards it either way.”
I nodded. I still wasn't sure how much the NPCs were made to assist us and how much true sentience they had. Maybe we were meant to take over, or maybe we were simply lucky. As I opened my menus to check the distance to Whispercreek, I had the realization that maybe they felt that way about us?
After getting the details on the situation, I went down to the tavern to grab Graham and Cain and pulled them into a small room to inform them of the situation with the refugees.
Graham snorted. “If they don’t fit up there, they certainly aren’t going to fit down here.”
Cain stared at his menus, talking as he did so. “We don’t have any ideas on their levels?”
“None. The rabbits don’t see levels, just like the monsters don’t.”
Graham began to sketch something on a napkin, giving out chuckle. After drawing a few lines, he waved his hands to presumably dismiss a notification. “Who would have thought a napkin would have levelled up my cartography skill?” He finished his sketch. “There are five villages that we know of and have connected to our network.”
He pointed to each of the settlements. “Softpaw is on the western edge of Shackleford County. Harehill is on the eastern edge. Junktail is north-east of us by quite a distance. Junktail is also at 48 rabbits with mostly zero intervention and is going to hit town status soon. Whispercreek is East of Albany, near Hubbard Creek. Sunwood Village is absurdly small and a few miles North of Cisco, which makes it on the border of Crusade territory.”
I scratched my head. “Yeah…so…”
“So…if we are going to establish territory, we should probably establish village heads.”
“Huh?”
“We should probably split our group up a bit to control and defend the settlements. It also lets us induct new people when they come in.” Graham tapped his pencil on his chin. "We've got a wider net out now, J. There's no telling who's going to stumble in."
Cain frowned. “Establishing leader heads right now doesn’t help our situation right now, though.”
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Graham shrugged. “If you say so.”
I thought on it for a second and grinned. “It might, actually. Cain, you want your leadership role?”
Cain’s eyebrows went up. “What did you have in mind?”
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Theresa’s red hair was tied back up in her signature ponytail. She had started working on a few crafting skills in her spare time, enjoying the experience gains from it. Mostly the crafting just served as a hobby for her. With the game’s systems, a low-level crafter could create something extraordinary that would take someone with years of experience months to craft in just a few minutes.
She placed her perfectly crocheted penguin on the table of her small apartment room and stared at Cain. “I just don’t really get why you’re the only one leaving.”
“I’m not, Tess. I found a volunteer list of a few gatherers and crafters. Also, Jackson and Taylor are coming with me.”
“Taylor? That Level 16 ‘combatant' who sleeps all day?”
Cain rolled his eyes and laughed. “I don’t know why you care so much.”
“You’re the only one here that I know from the old world. I don’t wanna watch you lead some stupid settlement caravan to Whispercreek and die old and alone at Level 25.”
Cain snorted. “We don’t age anymore. You know that.”
Theresa smiled. “You mean you’re gonna look like a kid who just walked out of a frat party for the rest of your life?”
“I think you’re forgetting who’s idea it was for me to join that frat.”
Theresa stood up, hand on her hips. “You’re acting like you hated it.”
Cain sighed. “You know J needs you here. You’re the only healer that’s worth a damn.”
“Who’s he to start ordering us around anyways? You’re over here acting like your boss just gave you a promotion.”
“He did, Tess. He said he wants me leading Whispercreek to success like we got Harehill to success. Two strong towns is better than one.”
“So while you’re over there doing grunt quests 6 levels below yours and getting nothing for it, he’s over here clearing dungeons and getting to Level 25?”
“It’s not about that, Theresa. There’s a goal here. It’s not just about being the strongest individual. We need infrastructure.”
Theresa shot air through her nose and jumped back on the bed. “He's really got you, didn’t he.”
“Why don’t you trust him?”
“He’s out of his depth is why. He’s some 20-something from who knows where Texas who put on a cowboy hat and got a few levels and is now trying to build a country or something. 99% of players are leveling and getting safer by themselves in safe, large guilds.”
“99% of players belong to one of those mega guilds, Tess.”
“What direction do you think the Commonwealth is heading? I mean...we might have just gotten another...what...50 people?”
Cain sat down on the chair, looking at her. “What do you want to do?”
“I….I’m not sure.”
Cain threw his hands up slightly. “I mean…shit, Tess. I can’t do much with that.”
“I don’t want you to leave.”
Cain squinted at her. He swore he could almost see tears in her eyes. “What’s wrong?”
“I’m scared, Cain. I’m scared you’re going to get hurt.”
“If anything, I’ll be safer over there than here. Besides, when have I ever done anything stupid?”
Theresa rolled her eyes and stood up, walking over to the chair. “We lost every one of our friends from college. Rosco got blown up into a thousands pieces a mile in the air. This whole situation is ridiculous. You’re the only constant, Cain.”
Cain couldn’t think of what to say and, as she kissed him, he realized he didn’t need to.
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It took two days to get Cain situated in Whispercreek. All of the new refugees were from a part of Breckenridge that had established a safe zone. We informed the new refugees of what we were, where we were, and everything we stood for. They all overwhelmingly wanted to join us. Apparently the zone change had led packs of Level 25 Werewolves into their town and had just eviscerated most of their people. The monsters were already to difficult to kill for most and many of them hadn't even reached class-selection. Breckenridge had apparently had a settlement of over 500 people. When the walls came down, most didn’t make it out. A group of 47 had made their way to Whispercreek. Of those 47, 45 decided to stay and become members of our guild. The other two thanked us kindly for the held and decided to head west to find something safer. We left 20 there, in addition to the 20 we brought in under Cain. Gatherers, Crafters, and a few combatants had signed the volunteer list to move. The idea was simple. If we mixed people, there’s a lot less of a chance of any issues. It sounded almost manipulative on the surface, but no one was really against the idea.
It took another day to get back to Harehill with the 25 people we had in tow. A few combatants, but certainly no one over Level 18. Their leader was an old Breckenridge pastor who had died in the Werewolf attacks. They were leaderless and looking for someone to take charge. Cain and I played that role well.
Upon arriving back to Harehill, it felt weird with one of our core missing. All three of the others offered to stay with Cain, but I trusted him. He was strong and, while he may have been a bit trigger happy, he was a good leader. I needed the other three here. Graham was my stoic word of advice, Theresa was the best healer in the Commonwealth, and Nick had proven himself invaluable and saved my life more than a few times.
We had a small party in the Pony, celebrating the new arrivals. Drinks were going around and the bar-rabbits were frothing over the gold. Of all the buildings in Harehill, the tavern was by far the biggest and best. In old times, these small medieval towns would have giant, beautiful cathedrals. No matter how poor the villagers were, the church got its money. Today, this small medieval town had a giant and beautiful tavern. It didn’t matter how poor we were, the tavern got its money.
As the lute-rabbit started in with a song about an Ogre and a Kobold, the door opened and two guard-rabbits walked in along with a Paladin player. The Paladin was a Level 20, just like me.
I immediately recognized him even before one of the guard-rabbits announced his entrance. “Sir Dan of the Abilene Crusade!”
I sat back in my chair, staring at the door. My quickdraw speed meant I was practically always armed, even when it didn’t appear so. Those who were slower casually gripped their weapons.
Dan looked different. His face was sunken in and his eyes seemed as tired and red as the stripes on his armor. Hell, the armor was familiar. It almost looked like…fuck.
“Hello, citizens of the Commonwealth.” Dan read the piece of paper in his hands, intentionally not making eye contact with me. “You have been selected to be the next organization incorporated into the Red Liberty Empire. I am from another kingdom that was incorporated, and I can assure you it is a pleasant experience. We retain our independence and strive to make life better for all.”
I raised my eyebrows. The Crusade got beaten? I saw it coming, but not this early. The Crusade were the largest Kingdom in the region and outnumbered us significantly. It felt off to have your nemesis replaced with an even bigger one without so much as a word of warning.
“We wish you to peacefully accept this offer and become successful members of the new society that the Red Liberty is creating. Please do not resist, and great wealth and services will be provided to you.”
The speech would have been very effective for someone starving in the middle of a field. If you switched a few words around, it might have been eerily close to the speech we just gave to the Breckenridge survivors. However, we were far starving. “Dan, why are you here?”
Dan wouldn't even look at me. “You have 72 hours to accept this offer. Please meet Captain Raphael Hawk in the town of Softpaw within this timeframe. Thank you for your time and please have a good night.”
Dan started to walk out the door. I wasn’t letting him get away that easily. “DAN!”
He turned, giving me a weak stare. “Yes?”
“What are you doing?”
“Take the offer, Jeremiah. Take the offer.” With that, he turned and strode out the door.