Aurora

I gazed in awe at the palace that was now mine. It was massive and appealed directly to my artistic bone. While most of the artwork being shown was from the Archanic race, as they called themselves, there was works from other races as well. One that I had to stop and admire was from a Gnome artist. It depicted a scene that looked like it was straight out of holy scripture. It had the entire packages, angels, demons, gods, and all the nitty-gritty races that were usually caught up in the middle of said battles.

“This way, my lady,” Lark said as we reached a junction in the palace. I had to admit, without him, I would be completely lost. Another fact that I was interested by was that Lark wasn’t actually an announcer, he was the head butler of, well, me. We finally made it to the throne room after a good half hour of walking through the complicated maze that was the building.

The grand room was lined with wealth. Gold and jewels were commonplace along with a few pieces of weapons and armor. Those were on the rare side from what I saw. For a race that decided its leaders through martial combat, they seemed to care much more about their works of art.

“Lark. I am newly ascended. As such, I have many questions. Are you qualified to answer them or is there someone better?” I asked deciding to play the humble card.

“While I am qualified, your tutor will be here momentarily. She should be about done Returning.” The way he said returning made it seem as something special. There was a knock at the door and Lark called for them to enter. My hand reached for my magic pistol even though it was still broken. Lady Shoa walked in, looking right as rain.

Shoa came to the foot of the throne before she bowed deeply. There didn’t appear to be any hostility or even anger that I had usurped her position. “Lady Aru. It is a pleasure to formally make your acquaintance. As you are newly ascended, I have been called on to help you with our ways.”

I relaxed and released the pistol’s grip. “Thank you. Your tutelage will be greatly appreciated. I must admit that I am over my head.”

“Nonsense. The Archanic have seen so few magic users. It is only natural that you take up a position of power among us. That you went for the highest simply speaks of your ambition which is never a bad thing in the Labyrinth.”

“I am glad that you see it that way. I hope you will aid me in running the city. I’d rather in not collapse under my control.”

“I am afraid that I cannot. There is no official position to aid you.” I pursed my lips. That wasn’t going to work. I had my dungeon to run as well. I couldn’t afford to focus down here too much. That said, I didn’t want to throw away the happy surprise I got dropped into my lap. If only I could create a position for her.

The government screen popped up almost unbidden. It went to the Job section and listed all the available jobs in the city’s government. There really was nothing that allowed another to run said government. Even the general couldn’t take over power should I fall in battle. Everything basically ground to a standstill. To me that felt rather short sighted.

I looked through the list with my hope draining until I reached the bottom and it returned with a blaze. I could create Jobs for the city. There were requirements, mainly being residency and pay. Due to the government type, all jobs came with housing. You lived where you worked essentially. Though that only applied to the government.

“I’m going to create the Overseer position for you. You will inherit it this cycle, but it will join the competition during the next.” I nearly choked when it cost me a million of the city’s gold to create the position. No wonder the last position created was listed as a year ago.

“If you so desire,” Shoa said bowing her head.

“I so desire it.” I remarked then looked between the two of them. “Now then. Tell me about this place.”

Twisted Webs had been around for five hundred years. The Archanic had been driven from their last city by a joint force of Deep dwarves and dark elves. Lacking magic, they were far weaker than most of the other races beneath the surface. They made up for it with downright crazy levels of physical strength. Shao was a monk and could damage magic metal of level three and down. Her speed allowed her to deal with weapons and armors of higher quality. My win in the arena had frankly been a lucky shot.

We had one long standing enemy and two allies near us. A faction from the Deep dwarves that had driven them from their former home had set up an outpost about a hundred kilometers to the north. While no outright aggression had happened yet, their patrols were edging closer by the day.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

Then there was a city of bugbears to the south along with a town of kobolds that had been recently established to the west. They had made good trading partners thus far. Negotiations for a join alliance had been in the works the last few months, but something changed a week or so ago and most of the negotiators vanished. They had no idea what happened and suspected foul play by the dwarves, but I had an inkling that it was the fact that the game had basically been turned into a real world.

I would need to find new negotiators or create a new defense for the city soon. With the magic-lacking Archanic under me, I felt like my dungeon was safe, but if these deep dwarves had any ability to sense magic or mana then I might have new issues on my hands whether I liked it or not. The Primal Gold might be putting off a mana signature that could be felt for kilometers. I quickly came to the conclusion that having a city of buff spiders under me was better than power hungry dwarves.

I rubbed my face then looked back up as I felt the weight of all this settle on my shoulders. “Alright. That’s enough on foreign affairs. Tell me more about the internal workings of the city.”

“As you wish.”

The people had a fair degree of freedom but there was a clear line. The un-ascended and the ascended. The ascended gained higher intelligence, strength, and durability, and were much inline with regular humans. The trade off however was that the un-ascended were much more skilled in crafting and weaving. Most of the best artists in the city were un-ascended. From the way Lark and Shoa told it, the ascended enjoyed the gifts of the un-ascended while the ascended protected the un-ascended.

The ascended also gained the ability to Return. An individual would lay eggs once a month and it gave them an extra life. Shoa had ten years’ worth of eggs tucked away giving her at least a hundred twenty extra lives. That was both scary and amazing. It meant the ascended were just a bit more expendable than normal NPCs. However, it meant I had to protect this city at all costs since the eggs were located here. If the dwarves burned the city, it didn’t matter at that point since the eggs were fragile as paper.

The pair continued for several hours. Working in tangent allowed them to continuously output information. In a span of four hours, I felt like I had learned everything there was to know about Twisted Webs. Finally, I raised my hand. “That will be all for today. I need some time to digest all this. Would you send for Operations Speciliast Mira and Opal?”

“As you wish.” I leaned back in the chair as the two left. The forlorn silence feeling strange after their continued talking of the last few hours. I didn’t have to wait long before the doors opened and the pair were led into the throne room. Lark bowed as I waved him away.

“Welcome to my new humble abode.”

“Hey. Looking good Aru. I knew you had it in you,” Mira said rapidly as she fiddled with her hands. “Didn’t expect you to have magic. Didn’t think that was possible.”

I really didn’t have anything to go on. Their clothes covered their wrists, but something about the way that they talked and acted led me to believe so. “Let’s cut to the chase. You two are players, aren’t you?”

The pair jerked up then dropped to their butts. “Oh thank god! Mira, we’re not alone anymore.”

“God. I was worried that it would be just the two of us for the rest of our lives,” Mira added. “Sorry about earlier. Had I known you were a player, I wouldn’t have took my frustrations out on you.”

“That was a bit cruel no matter the reason,” I remarked, leaning back in the throne.

“Hey.” Mira cried obviously offended. “The ascended, even the new ones, have like six or seven eggs hidden away. Its almost impossible to permanently kill someone of this race without a full on manhunt.”

“Well. I fell into a bit of good fortune thanks to you, so I’ll pass on enacting retribution.” I put my head in my hands before looking up at the pair. “Tell me. Is it true?”

“Is what true?”

“That this game, this world has been taken by aliens or whatever?”

The two shared a look before nodding. “I mean, there’s no way to be sure right? We’ve tried everything that we could think of to log out. Even the safety measures are turned off. This world is more or less real now.”

I dropped my head back into my hands. “I really hoped to hear something else,” I mumbled between my fingers.

“Does it matter?” Opal asked. “I hated my life in the real world. I was probably two days away from killing myself. Then this happened. It was like I had a new lease on life.”

“Opal…” I looked up from my hands. Mira was patting Opal on the back. She must have had it rough back in the real world. My problems were rough but not kill myself bad. I still wanted to escape and that’s why I came to this world in the first place.

“Enough! Enough talk about depressing shit!” I exclaimed jumping to my feet. I walked over and helped the two of them up. “Are you two really the only players here?”

Mira smiled at my obvious change of subject. “That’s right. We ascended a few weeks before all this. We’re with the military. Keeping an eye on the dwarves. There were maybe a dozen of us total that were playing this race. Not exactly easy considering its’ almost impossible to get magic.”

“Really?” I asked. To be fair, my body was sort of a cheat.

“If this was a gacha game, it would be like pulling an SSS on the first draw,” Opal answered for Mira. “I thought it was just a myth. A fact that could never really be achieved even though the developers said otherwise.”

“Lucky me then,” I grinned showing a small flame on my palm. “Let me add you guys to my friend’s list. It will make communicating easier.” It would be nice to have friends.

Mira nodded. “Sure.”

“Go ahead,” Opal replied with a small smile.