:10/02/2251:

2:15 PM

The first thing I did was bring up the Town Menu. From what I could tell, all cities were considered 'Towns' and rated anywhere from Shantytown to Metropolis. It pretty much went without saying that, if another player aligned an existing town to Chaos or created a new town and grew it quicker than mine, then I could loose the status of owning the Capital unless I had somehow leveled mine all the way up to Metropolis. At that point, if the names of the other factions were any indication, the faction name would either be changed from Chaos to Dementia or I would somehow gain the ability to rename the faction to whatever I wanted. 

The town menu was a huge thing, with everything from population management, to an unlockable perk tree, to building construction panels. I took some time going through it before ever leaving my perch atop the great mushroom building. 

The first thing that caught my attention was the perk tree. The very first level of major perks was blinking at me, asking me to chose a starting bonus for my town. Most of the options were simple things - there was a 'Fertility' option that increased town growth by 10%, there was a 'Fortified' option that would auto-construct and maintain town walls, and there were a number of other basic options that seemed pretty common for first level benefits. However, off to the side, there were also three perks that each had (Artifact) written next to their titles, and it was these that I found myself examining in detail.

The first option was called 'Impregnable (Artifact)', and the status text described how it would put a stone dome over the town, rendering the area impassable outside of massive siege warfare, portal technology, or teleportation spells. There was a side bonus of armies from the city would receive a 20% bonus to HP and Training Modifiers within the walls of the dome. It was a tempting option, I had to admit, considering the likelihood of McBeal's army turning straight for my new little settlement and wiping it off the face of the earth by week's end. Still, sadly, considering the sheer amount of firepower the Queen wielded I very much doubted that stone walls and combat bonuses, even fairly substantial ones, would do much good against the megalith that was her current allied army. Undercity, above all, had proven that stone walls and heroes were all but useless when faced with the massive war machine of the Elves and the Church of the Light.

The next option was entitled 'Wizard's Fief (Artifact)'. I skimmed the text, reading about how specialized skills would be more quickly available for all classes, the bonuses to trade, and how the city would attract a greater number of skilled workers. It was all fine and good for your average town, excellent even, but none of it would do me a bit of good when it came to keeping the city from being ground back into the earth. 

And the last option, of course, read as though it had been personally been created for me. I sent a prayer of thanks to Alley, or whatever benefactor had somehow thought to create such a creative bonus. 'Lost City (Artifact)' was the name, and I found my jaw sagging further and further as I examined the text. I had maybe made it half way through the description before I immediately reached out, selected the perk, and confirmed it with multiple, violent stabs of my index finger.

City Upgraded to: Lost City of Dementia!

Congratulations on selecting your Level 1 City Perk!

Lost City - Town Portal is Hidden from players without faction: Chaos of at least ACCOMPLICE rank; Town has been removed from all in-game maps and may no longer be added to in-game maps of any kind; Town Immigration slowed by 90%, but immigrating population will possess advanced classes and significantly upgraded abilities.

Lost City Terrain Bonus: Swamp - Beasts and vegetation within 200 mile radius will increase in power and ferocity, becoming increasingly hostile to Chaos non-aligned players.

Lost City Type Bonus:  Fungi - Consumption of fresh, unique corpses will provide upgrades to building construction. For new buildings, bonuses will apply to building growth; for finished buildings, bonuses will apply to building quality, furnishings, and abilities. Corpses of more powerful organics will result in more powerful bonuses. Note: Bonuses for consumption of player corpses will only be applied once per player.

Lost City Leader Bonus: Arch-Druid - Beasts and Herbs within 200 mile radius will significantly increase in quality.

Lost City Capital Bonus: Chaos - Faction aligned settlements will share base Lost City Traits, excluding additional bonuses, for all Lost City Perks.

As soon as I made the selection I saw that the next rank of perks had unlocked. Right, I remembered that my city had auto-upgraded to level three when it has become the capital city for the faction. The perk menu was like a ladder, with sequential rows going up. For the first row, the options that I had not selected were now grayed out, much like the third row up that had not been unlocked, with the exception that I could still see the titles and status text for the unselected perks in that first row. 

The second row had very similar basic abilities to the tier one selections. The real exception, I saw, was that instead of having three different Artifact type abilities, there were only two, both being connected to the selected 'Lost City' perk by faint golden, branching lines. It seemed pretty clear that these new perks had both been generated from my selection of 'Lost City'.  

The first was entitled 'Lost City of Forgotten Gods'. The description indicated that there were a number of drawbacks that came with the perks for this option. The benefits included Town Radius buffs to HP, concentration, 150% luck generation from consumed items, and faster building construction times. However, the drawbacks listed things like 200% insanity generation, 2% chance for NPC citizens to mutate into serial killers, 1% chance for any sleeping sentient to disappear per night, and others. The luck bonus, I knew, was enough to make most munchkin type players soak their pants, but the drawbacks were eating at me as I considered this branch.

The other branching perk was titled 'Lost City of Forgotten Wonders', and the more I read the description the more intrigued I was. Like the former Lost City perks, it came with its own, fairly significant drawbacks. But, even still, the more I read the bonuses the more certain I became. Finally, after spending considerably longer on this branch of the tree, I made another selection.

City Upgraded to: Lost City of Forgotten Wonders!

Congratulations on selecting your Level 2 City Perk!

Forgotten Wonders - Trainers for new, unique abilities will spawn within town radius; Town Specialists will now be able to craft unique enchantments and have access to steam technology; additional building types unlocked. Within town radius, the following event triggers are now enabled: Robot Uprising; Magical Catastrophy. The following NPC Classes may now be randomly generated for townsfolk or villains: Mad Scientist; Recluse Wizard; Awakened/Possessed Machines.

Forgotten Wonders Terrain Bonus: Swamp - Additional specialized trainers and craftsman will appear. Additional NPC Type unlocked: Hag

Type Bonus:  Fungi - Additional specialized trainers and craftsman will appear. Additional NPC Type unlocked: Awakened Flora (Note: Flora is grown rather than immigrated into the town)

Leader Bonus: Arch-Druid - Additional, nature aligned enchantments available to town specialists.

And, last but not least, the third tier of perks unlocked with that selection. Again, the basic, minor bonuses were available if somewhat uninteresting, whereas 'Forgotten Wonders' further branched into two separate and unique options. 

'Wonders of Magic' unlocked additional enchantments, increased the power of caster type abilities in the town radius and allowed access to advanced, magic type professions. 'Wonders of Science' unlocked additional technologies, increased the power of technology constructed in town buildings and unlocked science-based professions. 'Wonders of Magic' seemed to synchronize well with both my class and my city type, as I remembered vaguely that enchantments were created by soaking Soulgems in the cooling heart's blood of deceased creatures. 'Wonders of Science' however, was equally tempting, as who wouldn't be intrigued by the chance to maybe construct trains and zeppelins and Molotov Cocktails. 

Up until now, I had mostly been stumbling along through the game, mainly selecting whatever looked like it would probably be the best of a series of bad choices. As I weighed the new tier of perks in my mind, for the first time I started to seriously consider taking a more interesting, if less obvious option. They, neither of them, were bad choices, per say, as I realized I would have no idea what either actually did until much, much further down the line. Not until I had trained specialists and active, thriving populace for my now mostly barren little town would I really understand the full repercussions of the choice, as right now I wasn't really equipped to build anything, magical or otherwise.  

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Like chess, I figured I now had enough information on how the whole perk thing worked to maybe plan a couple of steps ahead. Lost City branched into Religious and Wonderous specializations. Wonderous had branched off into scientific and magical applications. I considered the other branch, Lost City of Forgotten Gods, for a moment and what I would have expected if I had gone down that rabbit hole instead. Most likely it would have branched off into different, specific gods, some craving specialized sacrifices while providing other growth bonuses or maybe unlocked mutations, while others perhaps would have, perhaps, dealt more with horrific orgies and given powerful abilities while insanity debuffs were active. 

So, if the trend continued, that I would imagine that a Magic focused branch would tend to branch out into more elemental specializations. So I would likely be given choices between like Earth/Air or Fire/Water as new perks were unlocked. So, it seemed, the city would unlock very powerful, yet very specialized enchantments, such as Magical Shields, or Healing Bonuses, or Earth Elemental Guardsman. Science, on the other hand, would likely branch into Steam/Industrial or War/Infrastructure - which would be considerably more likely to unlock weaker but broader applications of the advanced abilities. I imagined such things as anti-air rockets, and hidden mines, and robotic guardsman. 

After several minutes of indecision, I heard the soft whisper of a familiar voice fill my head. "I agree. I think we should go with our gut here." 

It actually annoyed me enough that she... that I was butting in on my own thoughts that I almost reached out and selected the more immediately beneficial 'Magic' option. But, eventually, I took a deep breath and made what I thought to be the better choice. 

City Upgraded to: Lost City of Scientific Wonders!

Congratulations on selecting your Level 3 City Perk!

Wonders of Science - Town Specialists will now be able to craft additional technologies; increased quality of specialized buildings; Trainers for advanced science-based professions will appear

Forgotten Wonders Terrain Bonus: Swamp - Ratio of Schematic requirements now will require 20% less metal, 15% less stone, and 20% more wood, 15% more fluidic components. 

Type Bonus:  Fungi - Masterwork quality products created in specialized buildings will now be given the 'Living' subtype. 'Living' technologies will be granted self-repair, smart targeting, or sentient type abilities.

Leader Bonus: Arch-Druid - Town Specialists may now use Soulstones to replace other types of power sources.

The last bonus was absolutely a game changer. I frowned for a minute as I considered how critical that little bit of information was, and how the lack of it has almost lead me to make what would have quite possibly been the wrong choice. The ability to power technologies as if they were enchantments was absolutely huge. It made sense that the status text would have been difficult to update to show the potentially thousands of different bonuses available given different conditions and synergies, but overall the omission seemed, at best lazy, and at worst outright disastrous. 

Anyway, with the third perk selected, as expected, the next level of perks remained grayed out, and no additional perks appeared to yet be available. I went ahead and navigated over to the population menus to see if there was any way to add actual citizens to my little empty village. 

Under population, there were three categories listed - trainer, specialist, and worker. Each had different options and metrics, but what stood out to me was that, while 'trainer' and 'worker' each listed '0 Available', the 'specialist' category had a little '3' listed next to it. I went into the specialist tab first, taking in the different options available. I could see that a number of positions were grayed out toward the bottom, each noting that population, fame, or town level requirements had not been met, while others were available mostly with zeros showing up in the bottom right corners of the different icons on the menu. 

Three of the icons, however, had ones listed by the icons, and those were the positions that I pulled up first. The first icon was of a crowned shadow-figure, and it opened into a description entitled 'Town Mayor'. The 'Mayor' duties listed mostly administrative functions, such as leadership, town management, and tax collection. At the bottom were a number of options 

At the bottom of that description were a number of options. The first was 'Purchase this Position' and had a little '5,000 gold' description next to it. Even converting credits into gold it would have been a major expenditure, using up a good fourth of my savings.  Ya, it turned out that buying these positions wasn't something I was really in a position to do. The next option was somewhat stranger, listing 'Grow this position (Special)' and describing the cost as 'One Month'. It was a nice option to have, and I immediately resolved to start growing some of the more valuable, if less critical positions for my village. The third option was grayed out, but I could still see the description of 'Build Automation for this Position' along with a reduced gold cost of '5 Gold' as well as some alternate material breakdowns in wood, steel, and Soulstone. There were also notes next to the description regarding the restriction 'Building an Automation requires filling Specialist Enchanter or Specialist Scientist positions' - positions which I noted that I needed to fill sooner rather than later. The last option listed 'Hire Experienced Professional' and noted 'One available'. Jackpot, I went ahead and selected it, then moved on to looking for the next available position. 

There was a 'One' next to an icon of a shadow figure holding a whip. The image was a bit disconcerting, but opening the description it turned out just to be the 'Work Supervisor' position, with duties involving management and allocation of town workers. I grabbed the 'Hire Experienced Professional' option again without really thinking about and moved on to the next, vaguely aware of the sound of a Town Portal activation, echoing from below as I did so.

The last icon was of a flower, described as 'Herbalist' in the status text. After confirming and filling the Herbalist position, I went on to look for the Enchantment or Scientist positions. I found the Enchanter Icon first, and read my options. Hiring the position would cost me 2,000 gold, or rather 2,000 credits considering I was still dirt poor in game. These were positions that I knew would probably save me in the long run so I decided that I would probably end up scraping up the cash when it came to getting my scientist. Considering I had already decided to focus on science here instead of magic, for the Enchanter I went ahead and selected the 'Grow - one week' option that I had been dying to try.

'Error - maximum number of positions already growing. Please cancel a position or wait for growth to complete to activate this option' flashed in front of me as I tried to select the option. I frowned and squinted at the error, trying to make sense of it, before I felt a weight in my stomach and it all became clear.

"Yes, I've gone ahead and started with a couple of trainer and worker selections while you were fiddling with all that," Em said unapologetically. "Interesting fact, we can only grow five positions at a time right now, I'm sad to say."

"I hate you," I muttered, trying not to get trapped in the loop of wondering who I was actually hating. 

Em didn't miss a beat, though - "I hate you too, honey," she shot right back, humming loudly in my head to the tune of 'camptown races' before fading back into the background. Great, that was a tune that would be stuck in both of our head now for the rest of the day.

I moved on until I found the Scientist position and ran the currency conversions necessary to have enough funds available. The 'buy' interface went on to allow me to select a race and specialty after I had paid the appropriate amount of gold, in which I selected a Gnomosh Automaton Artificer without much hesitation. 

Moving on to the worker menu, I found a couple of options listed. An 'Immigration' bar was active, hovering at around 3%. A 'Buy' Option was available, list price set for 300 gold, which I immediately disregarded. A build option was now showing as being 'available' though I saw that I lacked even the minimal material requirements that would be required to build a worker for the time being. And the 'Grow' option, similarly to the immigration bar, had a loading percentage showing a solid 10%, listing 'three days remaining'. 

There was also a spreadsheet available and I was surprised to learn that it listed three active workers, with stats regarding their current skill in logging, mining, and hunting, as well as promotion percentages each set to '0%'. I wrinkled my nose as I wondered whether Em had spent real money on them while I wasn't looking out of our account, and I promised to check later and keep a much more careful eye on my finances. Em was showing a bit more initiative than I was comfortable with right now, and I had a funny suspicion that it was something likely to get worse with time, rather than better.

Checking the 'Trainer' menu, I confirmed that I already had four growing, including the all important 'Arch-Druid' trainer. The requirements for them were expensive, the one I saw coming in at just under 15,000 gold, and there was no option there to build them, so I quickly decided to leave that section alone and let Em have at it. She had apparently volunteered for managing that section anyway, and after seeing the prices and restrictions I quickly decided that I was happy enough to let her have it.

When I finally finished going through those menus and closed out of the interface, immediately noticed three things. First, I noticed that the sun had started to sink below the horizon and the air was slowly filling with clouds of gnats and mosquitos; second I realized that I was hearing the sound of somewhat eerily familiar laughter; and third, I noticed that there were four, six foot serpents curled up on the roof in front of me, watching me with deep, inhuman eyes.

I started, sucking in a deep breath and rapidly scooted backward, with a second shot of adrenaline shooting through me as I felt the slope of the roof curving downward and my balance starting to wobble. At my sudden movement, all four serpents seemed to shimmer as one, growing and broadening in a strange, nausea-inducing kind of stretching as if their organs were swelling and stretching their reptilian skin at a hideously unnatural rate. 

It was only the innate, immovable fear of falling that held me steady until the shimmering, stretching of the serpent's bodies began to slow, swelling into the clearly distinct forms of actual humanoid creatures. And it was with a start that I found I recognized two of the faces before me.

I coughed, standing up as if to retain some shred of the dignity that I knew was already lost and buried. "Oh," I muttered, quietly. "Hey Tom. Amedile. Uh... fancy seeing you here."

The laughter that answered me only confirmed the notion that I wouldn't be hearing any 'your majesties' anytime in the foreseeable future...