:10/04/2251:

4:45 PM

As I was shoved into the modified body of my avatar, I was immediately grateful for the innate ability that melded my Robe to my new body's proportions. The larger area from which the tentacles now tore from my back did not so much cause a bulge in the material, it simply widened naturally the hole between my shoulder blades from which the appendages sprouted. Likewise, I mused, I was grateful that I wouldn't have to actually pull the material off and over my head, trying and somehow failing to imagine not tearing the form-fitting material in the struggle to physically remove the garment.

I then flew over toward the new Admin building, curious to see what was inside. I hadn't really looked at the details on the menu for some of these new buildings, and I knew there was nothing like physical self-discovery to really understand a place. I almost didn't recognize it, at first. The main building was less of a toadstool mushroom than it was a growth of Mycena - with thin, fifty foot stalks climbing into the sky and shaking the ground with great, five hundred foot umbrellas, each umbrella at a different height than the Mycena next to it, creating tiered, decorative canopies over the structures below. 

In each of the Mycena stalks, there was housed a single office, furnished with tiny Toadstool Tables and smaller mushroom chairs upon which to sit behind them. Ironically, I could see that a small number of the Mushroom People, my assistant workers, they were sitting on the little chairs and scribbling madly across glowing panels that appeared on the tables in front of them. It was, quite possibly, the single cutest thing that I had ever seen in my entire life up to that point.

The shaded path through the thirty odd, stand-alone offices was technically outdoors, though the Gold and Blood red highlights crisscrossed across the ground between the buildings giving it the illusion of being a single, cohesive structure. And the drawn path seemed to graduate upward, rising on a living hill of fungus, to the single, largest stalk at the far end of the pathway. 

I followed along the path, and the mushroom in question seemed to serve as a raised podium. There was a door off to the side, but more apparently, there was a balcony some twenty feet off the ground that looked out over the hilled path. Curious, I walked in the door to the right of the stalk, and I found a narrow, five-foot path curving within the stalk and an inclined angle that seemed almost like a stairway without the stairs.

I entered the stalk and walked up the passageway, around the curving path, until I reached the balcony. I found that it had a great view of the area between the buildings, and I could easily fit maybe a couple of thousand people within, sheltered from rain or snow under the umbrella stalks of the building. It really wouldn't do, I noted, for a crowd the size of the one from yesterday. But I felt like it would be easy enough to make announcements from this place to moderate crowds, and the workers in the little offices would still be able to hear me.

More interestingly, the passageway inside of the stalk did not end with the balcony. And so I walked back into the tiny space and continued my passage upward. It seemed like I traveled hundreds and hundreds of feet, with no windows or doors that I could use to easily fly out of or in through. Instead, I just trudged on and on until the curved passageway finally widened and led out into a moderate sized room.

The room was lit entirely by the soft, blue hue of fluorescent mushrooms across the ceiling, and there was only a single piece of furniture within. In the center of the empty room, there stood a single podium. And above that podium there shone the telling light of a spherical, glowing forcefield, hovering in the air. 

I approached, awestruck, at the simplicity and yet telling beauty of the scene before me. I grew ever closer and closer still to the shimmering field of light until, barely, I made out the shape that it held at its heart. A thin, metal circlet seemed to hover within the center of the field, glimmering, even still, with its own, faint light. 

I reached out my hand in spite of myself, unsure whether there was a danger. Still, in my heart, I knew that I was the mistress of this city, and no part of its structure should be naturally deadly to me. My hand pressed against the almost invisible shimmer of the field, and I found myself awed at how it was actually quite cool to the touch.

Would you like to claim the Crown of Dementia? Y/N

 I hesitated, surprised, at the sudden notification. Still, I quickly reached over and accepted the prompt. Flashing, the forcefield dissipated with a breath, and I found myself staring at my awaiting crown. It was, oddly, a circlet of brass, but instead of silken padding to hold it in place, thin ropes of red and gold mold curled around the bottom rim. They seemed to throb and pulse, in time with the beat of the ground outside, somehow a living part of the single organism that had given life to the city.

Between the top and bottom rings of brass and mold, thin, copper gears bridged that gap, holding the two circles of metal together with elegant, interlocking mechanisms. And in the center of each gear, I recognized the deep purple sheen of living Soulgems.

I reached out, taking the brass and copper rings up in my hand, and as the warmth of my touch met the cool metal, the gears silently came to life, spinning smoothly in my hand. The top ring of the crown spun, red and gold, beating lines of life spinning soundlessly in an endless, clockwise circle. I raised it to my head and delicately, reverently, I let it fall into place.

I somehow felt it when is clicked into my equipment loadout, not just the barely perceptible of weight against my crown, but more in the deepest recesses of my soul itself.

Crown of Dementia (Rank 4; Living; Artifact) 

Head

+4 Charisma

Special:  Words of Power are 40% more effective

Most classes could learn different words of power. The words themselves were the same for all classes, and the difference was mainly in, not only which words were available, but also the scope and effectiveness of their powers. Learning a Power Word generally required somewhat lengthy quests, and most of them came with fame requirements to even start in on, so while most classes tended to learn a few during their play, it wasn't something that beginning players tended to work toward and, to date, the thought of trying to quest for one honestly hadn't even crossed my mind.

The crown said it was 'Rank 4', which also happened to be the rank of my town. So while the bonuses were mostly useless right now, in a couple of levels when we finally maxed out the town, I expected they would become fairly significant. Count in the fact that there was no AC on the item, and given my racial restrictions it would have been insane for me to not wear the headpiece. Despite all of the attention that I knew it would draw. 

Plus, when I thought about it, my most recent additions of the fungal tentacles would be fairly distinctive. And while I, as much as any gamer, couldn't resist the draw to distinguish myself from the millions of other supposed heroes and adventurers that infested the world, I also knew that, even without wearing an actual honest-to-god crown, it would be unlikely that I'd manage to escape being recognised anywhere in the world now in my standard, Nymphin form.

So, the wheels of my head starting to turn, I needed some Words of Power of my own. First, I realized, I should probably finish my basic Druid training and learn a third Aural Dance. I'd been procrastinating on it, what after the whole wolf thing that had happened the last time, but I really needed to go knock that out. After all, how could I expect to be respected as a queen if I lacked a basic complement of the standard abilities possessed by your average Druid?

Still, the problem was that I knew exactly which Aura I wanted to achieve next. And the problem with that was that the trainer lived, not only in the very heart of Anthera lands but also directly next to a holy site for the Church of the Light.

Yes, I could have gone to another trainer. There were, in fact, others by the small towns that dotted the landscape, run by the more successful, or at least ambitious, guilds. However, I knew in my heart that I was in no way going to  prioritize any of the other Auras. Not when stopping to dance in the middle of combat was like painting a target on your forehead and asking your enemies to shoot. Why would you want an aura that reduces pain by 10% for example? Even with Arch-Druid bonuses, I couldn't really see the purpose of risking life and limb in order not to feel it when people shot you. 

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

No, for my third Aura and what quite possibly would be my last instanced trial, I wanted something special. And, so far as I could tell, the only way for me to find that would be traveling into the heart of enemy territory. And, what's more, I knew that once I was there I would only have five hours, the maximum Livestream delay before McBeal would know I was there and send her soldiers to hunt me.

Serendipitously, just as I was about to head toward the portal stones, Em cut me off abruptly, "Hey, Mags, I know what you're thinking, but before we go can you hold on for just a minute? We almost missed it since it didn't directly result from the perk, but it turns out that there is a new building type available. Just like, give me five minutes to buy some 'Manor' Buildings, and we should be good to go, ok?"

I shrugged, nodding and suddenly painfully aware that, so long as I was logged in, Em was always going to be little more than my passenger. And while I had reviewed the streams, and I had caught her logging into our account and playing herself while I had slept, I felt less concerned that she was using my login and more felt guilt for her crippling lack of agency, during my waking hours. And immediately after that, I felt anger - it was my life she was living, after all, my brain that she was emulating, so why should I have to feel guilt for that?

To distract myself, I checked the current upgrade requirements, surprised at how easy it should be to reach town level five - 'Three advanced building upgrades; Increasing Residental Growth to 16 stories in total; Total resident population exceeds 3,000'. Double checking my math, I checked in, "Hey Em, not to bug you or anything, but it looks like we'll upgrade the town again if we build one more Residential Building?"

I ended up waiting a good minute before I heard her reply, "True, but it would be a lot cheaper to just wait for the current residences to finish and then start upgrading them. I thought we might want those points later, depending on what unlocks at level five. Especially considering the fact that I somehow doubt the final rank of six will be quite as easy to achieve as the levels before it."

She had a point, but I spent a few minutes thinking about it. If we upgraded the city twice in a day, while it might not be the best investment as far as our building points went, it would have a psychological effect for our faction. If they could clearly see the results of their sacrifices, their decision to back our, my, city, they might be more inclined to make additional sacrifices in the future. And more, while we had a certain 'underdog' look and feel for the time being, at the same time everyone loves a winner. If we could clearly make a show of power, less than twenty-four hours after the world had been made aware of our existence, there was something to be said for the effect on morale that it might have.

Responding directly to my train of thought, Em cut in directly, "I know what you're thinking. Literally. But wasting fourteen thousand building points simply for a show of power? Especially considering that our town hasn't actually even built anything yet with all of these new workshops?" she paused. "I don't know, it seems wasteful to me. We could just as easily show our 'power' by building a two hundred foot Megalithic Golem, which, who knows, we might actually be able to do now."

It would be idiotic, I realized, not to listen to the overpowered supercomputer who was, literally, an upgraded version of my own mind. Still, when push came to shove she was still fairly young, a silicon-based replica with a few clever quantum particle processers. I wouldn't question her math, and I wouldn't question her technical abilities, but it would also be completely idiotic to listen to a two-month-old regarding questions of human nature.

"Consider it an investment," I whispered as I opened the console and allocated the 15,000 points. I noticed that Em had already started the other buildings as I did so, reducing our total pool to 61,232 BP after my addition.

"I hope you're right," came her final words in my head as the string of updates drowned our conversation.

Congratulations!

Your town of 'Dementia' has been upgraded from: COLONY to: CITY STATE

Achievement Unlocked!

Politician, Tier 5

Owner of a [City State]

City Related quests will now appear more frequently and with increased difficulty thresholds.

Crown of Dementia upgraded to (Rank 5, Artifact)

+5 Charisma

Special:  Words of Power are 50% more effective

Special:  Insanity is generated 25% more quickly

Wait... what?

No, when I thought about it, it made sense. The whole look and feel of the Lost City tree had been a trade-off between buffs and debuffs. It was stupid of me to think that the City Crown would be any different. And yet, thinking back to my first and only real experience with the effects of Insanity in this game, the words written upon the Crown chilled me to the core. The entire system was designed to get into your head, to slowly learn what bothered you, what gave you nightmares in the middle of the night, and blow whatever that was up into full living color. No, the debuffs, I knew, would only grow worse in time. And intentionally expediting that escalation seemed absolutely insane.

And yet... the town was named Dementia. I had to have had some inkling of the personal cost when I first had given it its name when I first had selected that initial Perk. On some level or another, I realized, I had already accepted the trade-off of the crown. And, likely, the AI had just picked up on that and adjusted my play experience accordingly. 

Anyway, the perks available to me this time, the ones that mattered, started with 'Necromantic Magitech'. With it, I could sew together and reanimate living horrors, powered by Soulcrystals. We could build devices that would burrow into corpses on the battlefield to animate them and bolster our army, and buildings could now be sewn together directly from the bones and skin of the dead. I had to admit, I liked it. It was, in fact, a huge shift to the look and feel of the town, our army, and more it would be kind of fun to march into the Elven Kingdoms and wreak vengeance upon their capital with aberrations constructed of their fallen paladins. 

The second option, however, was just as game changing. 'Living Biotech' would allow us to construct Megaliths of living metal and stone. It would empower beasts born in the city to supernatural levels, and allow the growing, breeding, and capture of magical creatures which could be further upgraded technologically. For some reason, the description placed the image of charging unicorns with lasers on their heads smashing into an opposing army directly into my brain.

The part of my heart that reveled in my anger, that had laughed every time Peeceval had slaughtered some other player and plotted ten thousand ways I would never take vengeance on my junior high tormentors at night, that part of me wanted more than anything to choose the Necromantic Tech. Still, I was, now and forever, playing an Arch Druid who ruled over a mushroom city. And somehow, I reflected, looking at the faces of everyone who had died to help our cause sewn into the stalks would take something beautiful and absolutely corrupt it.

Still, I remained undecided until I remembered Alley's earlier speech. Where she had pleaded for us, just once, to go out and save a kitten instead of our usual violent antics. It was her voice in my head and her sincere, desperate face that finally guided my finger toward my selection.

City Upgraded to: Lost City of Living Magitech!

Congratulations on selecting your Level 5 City Perk!

Living Magitech - All city products and constructs now automatically upgrade to including the 'living' descriptor. 'Living' technologies will be granted self-repair, smart targeting, and sentient type abilities. Additional buildings are available: Beastiary. Beasts and Magical Creatures born in a city with a Beastiary will receive automatic perks, advanced intelligence, and supernatural abilities. Additional schematics may now be researched in the Laboratory that will upgrade living creatures with technological components.

Living Magitech Terrain Bonus: Swamp - Beasts and Vegetation within a 200-mile radius of the city will now breed and grow faster, as well as become immune to natural disasters and old age. Beasts and Vegetation are now 'friendly' to Chaos aligned players.

Living Magitech Type Bonus:  Fungi - Building upgrade: Greenhouse Sublevels. Veins of Living Metal may now be grown in Greenhouse Sublevels.

Living Magitech Leader Bonus: Arch-Druid - City will now attract rare and magical creatures.

Having learned my lesson, this time the very first thing I did was check the requirements for level 6, Metropolis. For the next upgrade I would need 'Construct Three Monolith Guardians; Increase Residental Growth to 30 stories in total; Total resident population exceeds 6,000'. I didn't actually know how to construct the Monoliths, I realized, and some quick searching confirmed that there was no way to actually build them from the city menu. The additional 14 stories of residential upgrades would cost 14,000 building points, which meant that hey, I was actually right about building the fifth new residential building! If nothing else, now that we knew the requirements it would actually let us start focusing on the Monolith construction.

Then again... if I needed to buy the additional 2,000 town residents it would cost me something in the realm of six hundred thousand building points, I figured. Still, even if that were the case, the number was pretty much insurmountable regardless, and fourteen thousand points wouldn't have made all that much of a difference, really. 

Meh, anyway. I went ahead and paid six thousand BP to upgrade my three Greenhouses, and another five thousand each to grow two Bestiaries.  I still had about 45k BP, but it definitely was a hit from my earlier abundance and I could almost hear Em's sigh in my head.

"Well, at least we will get all the upgrades early. Maybe it will help speed up our construction, at least," she grudgingly conceded. 

I shrugged, not really wanting to get into it again with her. But still, I was confused how an exact copy of my mind could possibly be so much more conservative than me.

The last thing I did was to walk through the town, noting that the buildings appeared to be growing significantly faster now as I walked and let myself be seen. I made sure to hold my head high, displaying my new, strange looking crown as I wandered through a sea of strangers.

No... not strangers. Subjects. My subjects, I reminded myself and straightened my spine and tried to enjoy myself. Because I knew that tomorrow... if this next class trial was anything like the last, tomorrow was going to be hell.