Maxwell

I rested my head in my hands. There was a lot of loot to sort through for an army of ten thousand. Most of it was basic level stuff. Nearly throw-away for a player, but it was all perfect for low-level troops that couldn’t use the higher-level stuff yet. It also served to give my budding army a sizable armory. The only problem… much of it was sized for goblins.

Most goblins were shorter than humans and elves. The ranked goblins were a bit larger in scale, but many of them relied on brute force. Their weapons were a far cry from being good. I rubbed my head again as I pushed the paperwork to the side. I had set most of the parameters that my officers could use to sort the gear.

That just left the gear that the players dropped when they died. Unlike NPCs, they only dropped one or two pieces when they died. Of the ten that attacked us, only three of them actually died. The rest fled when the leader ran.

There was a nice robe that was mostly geared toward healers, but it would give me a boost to my casting. There was also a dagger and shield that were enchanted and made from tier three or four metals. I planned to give the shield to one of the Jade Collective and the dagger to Kaga. Equipping the robe, I accessed my status. I had a few spells that I could learn, but I was waiting as I wasn’t sure what exactly would serve me best at the moment.

--

Name: Maxwell Orfen

Level: 27

Race: Sacred Void Elf

Class: Lord

Specialization: Void Lord

Total Mana: 4,150/4,150

Abilities:

Dark Sight

Elemental Magic – Dark, Earth, Fire

Void Magic

Basic Sneak

City Management

Learn Spell: 2

--

While I was busy pressing my fingers into my temple to try to deal with the headache, Rowena came into the office bringing some herbal tea that smelt wonderfully to my pounding head. “Hard at work?” she asked, handing over the cup of tea.

I sighed and took the cup. “Being a lord sounds fun, at least until you get to this part. When I started going through the loot the soldiers picked up, I had to create parameters for each of them. If I have to do this for every engagement…”

“You need assistance and advisors. There are NPCs you can hire that handle this sort of things,” Rowena remarked taking a seat across from me. “Still. Are you sure about handing over so much gear to you know who?” she shook her head as I had lost my mind. “I mean from what I saw she clearly doesn’t need it.”

“Exactly. Most of it is junk gear you’d find on low-level mobs, but its not complete trash. Even if she doesn’t use a single piece it at least gets the message out that I—we don’t want to fight her. Since most of it is gear that my elves can’t use anyways, we’re not losing out either.”

Rowena waved her hand in the air. “I get the logical. I just don’t like it, personally. She’s given us nothing but problems since day one.”

I chuckled at her attitude. “I agree, but we’ve also caused our fair share of annoyance to her.”

Rowena shrugged. “There you go again. You’re too nice sometimes.”

I laid my head on my arms on the desk. “We can probably solve everything with violence, but with players able to respawn, the cycle will be endless.”

“I know,” Rowena sighed. “I just don’t like that woman.”

“Fair enough. Though something tells me she doesn’t like you either,” I said laughing. I heard a ding and looked up at my system. Razz had sent me a message. They had found another dungeon. I perked up at that. Nature’s Grotto was fine, but we knew how to beat it without really trying. The loot had already been tapped out as well. The mana stones had slowed recently. We still got some, but it was nothing compared to the first few dives into the dungeon.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

Other than our neighbor, dungeons felt like we were back in the game at least for a while. “Razz found a dungeon,” I remarked to Rowena.

She seemed to welcome the topic change. “What’s the theme?”

“I don’t know yet. They haven’t explored it.” I sent a message asking for more details, but Razz was silent. When almost ten minutes passed, I decided to check with him later. He was a grown goblin, I didn’t have to babysit him.

Rowena returned to the office carrying a tray of drinks. I thanked her as she handed me one of the mugs. “Max. I was wondering if you were planning to head to one of the cities anytime soon.”

I sipped the mead. I had no idea if mead actually tasted like this, but I was glad for the sweet flavor. “I hadn’t planned on it anytime soon, but a quick trip wouldn’t be too hard. I have a decent mana pool now with all the levels I got from the war. Not mention, our potion supply is growing by the day.”

“That’s good to hear. I want to travel south. There should be a Beastkin city. I needed to speak with a master to further my class.”

I ran a hand through my hair. I had gone north before. The south was mostly unknown to me. “I haven’t traveled too far south yet. I’ll have to do a few jumps to get a lay of the land.”

Rowena nodded. “That’s fine. Whenever you get a chance. Otherwise, I run the risk of becoming useless around here.”

I reached over and patted her hand. “You’d never be useless. For one, you’re about the only person that I’m sure is actually my friend.”

“True enough.”

~~

I yawned as I chugged a potion. The brisk cold of the mountain kept me from truly enjoying my little trip, but the view made up for it. Heading south, after making sure I got the location of any other dragon nests from Lapis, I had traveled a good thousand kilometers. The Great Forest lived up to its name. Even having traveled this far, the forest was still stretching as far as the eye could see.

Scanning the landscape as best I could, I checked for anything that might be worth noting. Eblos covered a good deal of the forest, so there might be other villages or towns tucked away from view. If even one of them had a player Lord like Razz, I might be able to extend a hand of friendship to them.

As isolated as we were, we needed trading partners. I was contemplating all my options in that regard. At least we had the trading portal. That took some of the pressure off me. I had already used some of the gold generated to buy a few spells from the Mage’s Tower. All simple magic, but still a nice addition to my repertoire.

With shiver, I cast one of those said spells. “Long-Sight.” A magnifying glass seemed to appear in front of my eyes. I was able to make out details of the trees that were over two hundred meters away with ease. I scanned the forest again, but yielded much the same results as my last few observations. The forest was empty in this area.

Sighing, I turned my sight to the mountain range. I looked for a good spot then teleported. Checking my mana pool, I calculated that I jumped nearly fifty kilometers. Not bad considering the range I was able to move just a few weeks ago. If only long distance teleportation weren’t so draining. Then I wouldn’t have to leapfrog my way to locations that I already knew about such as Alflona.

At my new location, I studied the forest again. While there was some overlap, there was a good chunk to the south and east that were new. I also pulled out a notebook and jotted down some of the noticeable landmarks. It was rough, but it would make for a well enough map when I was complete. In the future, others would have to make this journey the old-fashioned way.

“Hello there, what’s that?” I mumbled as I spotted something sticking out of the forest. It was a tree that was easily four times as large as the see of trees around it. Not only that, but I spotted what looked like people moving around the trunk on ledges. I quickly checked my mana pool to make sure I had enough then used the Long-Sight spell.

My vision zoomed in until I was able to make out the individuals working around the tree. I shouldn’t have been surprised, but I found that it was a community of Elves. “Looks like we have some neighbors after all.”

About an hour passed while I was observing the community, mostly trying to see if there were any players, I got a message from Razz. I hadn’t heard from him in almost twelve hours. “Sorry for the late reply, died.”

I sat up from my seat on a boulder. I tapped the call function on my friend’s list. “Died? How?” I said as soon as he answered.

“Underestimated the dungeon! Barely made it into the first room before we were decimated.”

For them to be wiped out so fast… It sounded like this dungeon was going to have to wait until we were much stronger. “Any idea what it was?”

“Oh yeah. There were murlocks,” Razz replied with a groan.

“Sorry?” I asked since he sounded funny.

He laughed. “Wrong game. They were technically called Drowns. Annoying bipedal frog like creatures. Some people like to call them water goblins.”

“Were they that strong?” I asked. It might have been a mismatch of abilities. Razz’s group was more geared toward physical confrontation after all.

“They were. They acted like assassins. The dungeon was basically a ruin located on an island at the center of a lake. It was a pain to reach, and the first zone of the dungeon was basically a flooded room.”

I didn’t have many spells that would be effective against water based monsters. We might have to write off this dungeon. I rubbed my head then sighed. “Alright. I’ll hear more about it when I return.” I closed the call then turned my attention back to the giant tree. I wanted to make contact with them, but I hesitated. I was currently a dark elf after all. This game’s lore had the surface elves and the Labyrinth elves at odds. Not to mention I was a Void elf on top of that. It was just adding fuel to the fire.

“If there aren’t any players, then this place is likely to be an enemy down the road.” I sighed again then got to my feet to get back on my journey. With a final glance, I decided to let Rowena handle any dealings with this place in the future.