Past Rowan Keep, in the wildlands that spread west and south, a hidden camp of mercenaries stirred once again. Players logged in, and wagon loads of cheap leather armor and beginner weapons were passed out to anyone in need. The new recruits sneered at the 'beggars,' ignoring that they would probably be in the same situation at the end of the night. Alchemarx had been throwing small groups of player-mercenaries at Rowan Keep for months. Initially, the groups had caused delays as they sabotaged the construction site, ruined or stole the building materials, started fires, and killed the workers. But as time went on, it took more and more raids to achieve their goal. Quests to hunt 'bandits' were given out by the Baron, encouraging groups of players to hunt the saboteurs. The building supplies were consolidated and put under guard, ambushes were set, and the easy-to-kill workers became much harder to kill. Or to kill at all, as many a mercenary found out. Armed with just an adze, the workers could now hit hard enough to hurt an armored player, and the workers had more health and stamina. They also didn't suffer the increasingly long death penalties when they died multiple times. They were on the job, and the penalty was negated for them, but not the players trying to kill them.

Alchemarx increased the number of raids and hired more players. Real money had to be paid to get the best player-mercenaries who were willing to sacrifice game time and advancement in exchange for a fatter bank account. The accountants at Alchemarx grumbled constantly, and weekly meetings were held where the same arguments were hashed and rehashed. Their failure to stop the Baron of Gadobhra's ambitious project had raised the stakes. There was a lot of pride and jobs on the line. And commitments had been made. Alchemarx had a chance to lay claim to much of the northern empire, backed by a select group of imperial bureaucrats and petty nobles. But first they had to stop Baron William from succeeding.

Alchemarx had replaced nearly all of the peasant farmers in the Barony of Northguard with their own people and were set to reap a huge profit in the coming summer. Wagonloads of grain were being sent to the markets south of them. Huge swaths of land were being prepared for crops as soon as the unseasonable weather cleared. But like all corporations, they like profits without competition. And Baron William was someone they couldn't ignore. He'd already begun to cause havoc in the meat and grain markets of the North by shipping hundreds of barrels of cheap sausages, groats, salted meat, cider, and apples. Alchemarx wanted to control the grain markets and had allies who currently produced most of the beef and pork. If Alchemarx could delay the work at Rowan Keep, forcing Baron William to give up Gadobhra, it would solidify their market and make many useful people beholden to them. Not the least of which was the Department of Acquisitions and Purchasing. The three witches of Alchemarx had already begun negotiations to 'manage' Gadobhra for the Empire, solving many problems at once.

With their in-game cash limited, Alchemarx was supplementing their resources by hiring players. By paying them in real-world money, they could send wave after wave of them to slow up the building of the keep. They had run into a problem, though. Time. Specifically, the downtime after a player died. Multiple deaths increase the time to respawn and the time the newly risen were affected by the debuff. Together, these two negative effects were slowly crippling their army. The three members of the upper management team running the show for Alchemarx within Genesis had thrown themselves into the game looking for advantages. Someone had noticed and made them several offers they couldn't refuse.

Now, in addition to their ragged mercenary army, they unleashed their blackest magic at Rowan Keep in a last-ditch effort to stop the completion of the upgraded teleport system.

"Bubble, Bubble, toil and trouble, bring me a drink, and make it a double!" Three women stood around a black iron cauldron as its contents bubbled and put out noxious fumes.

"You forgot the words again!"

"It doesn't matter! If it starts out right and has a rhyme, the spell works. Now shut the hell up so we can send this batch out to meet up with the rest of them. And start pouring the drinks; I need a shot from that bottle of Elven Gin we found in that last dungeon."

"Keep telling yourself that we found a dungeon and not a goblin bar and grill. It even had the name on the front: 'Gobrot's Gritz and Spritz'. Have to hand it to them; the little suckers had a nice selection of booze. But damn, they fought hard, and the drunker they were, the harder they hit!"

Around them, a dozen players faded into view, brought back from death by the spell. They were wearing only simple tunics and sandals; their gear was in their headstones near Rowan Keep and difficult to recover. "You know the drill. Grab a set of leather armor and basic weapons from the crates and see if you can manage some damage and delay this time. Remember, every sortie pays cash, so you're getting paid well to die!"

The players did indeed know the drill. They'd been doing this all week, and some of them for a month or longer. It wouldn't have been possible if they were subject to the normal death penalties, but the witch coven's spell was taking care of that, and paying the price. And the price was growing with each and every player brought back from death early and sent back into the fight. As the spell ended and the pressure in their heads increased again, the bottle of gin was split three ways and quickly thrown down thirsty throats.

"Ah, I needed that. The strain of doing this is getting worse. I'm going to be an alcoholic in this game before this operation is over."

"Why not? You're an alcoholic out of the game."

"You two do realize nothing has changed? We still work 16-hour days, with not enough resources, crap working conditions, and yet we're expected to work miracles. Just the same here as working for Alchemarx in the real world."

"You're depressing me; I'm going to need another drink. What is our total up to now?"

One of the witches consulted an ancient tome and calculated on an abacus that used fairy skulls for beads: "According to the Black Abacus, we each owe 294 days and 6 hours of the death penalty. So don't even think about dying. The pressure we're feeling now is nothing compared to dealing with that."

Find this and other great novels on the author's preferred platform. Support original creators!

"Nearly a damn year? Shit, that will play hell with getting anything done. Can we lessen that by taking Soulburn?"

"Don't even joke about it. We just hit level 12. And that was using a ton of Alchemarx resources to power-level us this high with grinding and sacrificing our paid mercenaries for their experience. Losing any of that isn't an option. How would we pay the cost of the Arcane Crystal Gazers, the Black Abacus, the Tome of Cheating Death, or the Dagger of Soul Flensing? The cost of those will come due at some point as well."

"I say we do the same thing: Grind experience with a rotating group of players and have the home office pay them for the experience we gain from sacrificing them."

"Won't work as well. At the start, we gained 20% of their experience, but the Dagger is getting dull. The last batch was down to 5%, and it's only going to get worse."

"Shut up, you two! This is counter-productive. The opportunity to cut those deals was limited. We did the research, wrote the plan, agreed to the price, and set things in motion. Now, we just need to follow through. We're only bitching because of the strain. Suck it up; it's only going to get worse as we send more and more people to slow them down. If we can get people over the walls tonight while their teleporter is down, it just takes one good hit or one spell to screw up the runes on the Tier Four stone. They can't make another quick enough, and Billy fails with the revamp."

"Seven minutes until the next batch, chew some willow bark, take a potion, down your gin, but get ready to bring back the next group of cannon fodder."

The cauldron bubbled, giving off a pale green light, and minutes later, two dozen more players appeared in the world, ready to attack again. No matter what the cost. Their paychecks would be waiting for them when they logged out.

----------------------------------------

Squire Squeak was taking a break and getting a snack in the kitchen next to the main barracks. After he'd finished correcting the 'bad math' and revised the calculations for the theoretical hermetic shield, he'd been famished. Thinking that hard had burned a lot of calories. Two helpful soldiers escorted him down and explained the need for an emergency lunch to the cooks.

"Hey, Cookie, this is one of the Baron's people. Think we can scramble up some lunch for him?"

The cook, wise to the ways of soldiers, especially these two, tossed a lid on the bubbling pot and grabbed two fresh loaves of bread out of the oven. "Oh, being helpful escorts, are we? And expecting a little something for yourselves, I bet. Grab a seat, but you're early for the stew I have cooking. So, just like I told the other two bottomless stomachs over there, it's fresh bread, smoked sausage, and hard cheese."

Squire Squeak was happy to see the Shepherd and butterfly that he'd met earlier when milking the cow-beast-things for stinky milk. And happier to see the half-eaten wheel of cheese on the table next to them. The two soldiers, Rolly, Squirmie, and the Squire, sat around the table, eating the standard meal of every member of the Legion but enjoying it far more. Rolly noticed the Squire was on his fourth slice of cheddar.

"You like cheese? You should try the food at the Inn. On Thursdays, they do pot roast and potatoes covered in cheese sauce. It's awesome."

The Squire tried to remember if he'd ever eaten 'pot roast' and decided he hadn't, but anything with cheese sauce would be good. "I'll have to try that. I love trying new food. I only ate food cubes for too many years, and the food here is amazing."

Rolly had suspected that, unlike the huge knight, the Squire was a player. This confirmed it, as well as that he'd grown up in a habitat. "You too? I hate the taste of food cubes, but they have the most calories and are either free or cheap. I never want to eat chicken again. I'd rather starve."

"I programmed the food processors in my section to offer cheese sauce with food cubes or just macaroni and cheese, no food cubes."

Rolly's eyes got big, "Oh, awesome. You can do that? I could never break into the programming of those."

"It's easy. The manufacturer uses the same password for all the habitats. Just hit 'Q' to enter the diagnostics program, then use 'XONLEMOXNLM-249538' when it asks for a password. When it asks you to confirm the password, type in 'Bert-is-an-IDIOT,' and it will open up the whole program. There are lots of good options they never use for the habitats."

"Got it. How did you figure this stuff out?"

The Squire shrugged, "I'm an Engineer." It was an easier answer than explaining he'd been hacking into much harder systems since he was two years old.

Further conversation was halted as the Knight of the Jackalope clanked into the room. "Squire Squeak! Come quick! Evil is afoot! We need to smite people and take ears! And I have a quest to kill Evil Witches."

The Squire stood up and pocketed the rest of the cheese, then pulled out his list. "We do have a quest to kill witches. I thought we'd have to skip that one. All the witches we found here are part of a white circle."

"These are Black Witches. Evil Sneaky Black Witches. Larry saw them. They have a whole army of players. Black hats, black robes, black book, black pot, black county-thing, black dagger, and a bottle of evil black juniper potion. Very black, very sneaky. We must hurry and smite the Witches of Alchemarx before they get away or someone else kills them."

As the two turned to leave, Rolly nodded to his pet and stood up. "I would join you in this noble quest, Sir Larry."

The knight nodded his head, making his flexible ears and antlers bob back and forth. "Yes, more Squires is good! Come join our quest, Squire Shepherd and Squire Bug!"

Within a minute, the four of them were outside the walls. The knight turned to his squires. "Be very, very quiet. We're hunting Witches!"