Dave got up the next morning and was still tired.

He and Max had made their way back to the camp pretty late. Bixby, who was sitting watch, told them they should rest, he would take their shifts. It was nice of him. So nice in fact, that Dave almost didn’t complain. The only thing that made him accept his offer, was that he immediately drifted into sleep as soon as he laid down.

He groggily took a few steps around camp and did a few stretches. To his surprise he didn’t feel stiff in the least. The last few days he had gotten used to the constant ache one got from sleeping on the floor. And all the nagging that came from walking day in and out. But today his body simply felt fresh.

As soon as everybody was awake, Max and Dave excitedly shared their idea. The others just looked at them dumbfounded while they kept explaining.

By the end most of the focus was on Bixby though. He was the only one with enough knowledge to know whether or not their plan could work.

“I… I think it could work.” He spoke finally. “Remember, Nodes were never my specialty though, so I can’t say for sure. It sounds almost too wild to be possible.”

Dave couldn’t fault him for thinking their plan was far fetched. Heck he wasn’t even sure it would work.

The idea was simple. In the Node Menu you could define a parameter around it, where the Node’s influence should be focused on. On that parameter you would usually build a city for the surrounding Node, making the most use of all the buildings and upgrades.

There were also different upgrades for the area itself, such as making it more rich in Mana or giving other boons. There were also lots of defensive buildings, like shields that would automatically spawn encapsulating the area and defending the Node.

Most of these shields were rather weak though, so there was no doubt the Nodefoxes would breach them.

The Nodeinterface gave different scores to evaluate the power of an upgrade or building. For shields it was usually a Defensive Score and a Recharge Time. There were also things like continuing Mana Costs and Range of Influence, which went hand in hand but were almost neglectable since they only had such a small space to work with.

Even the most expensive shield they could afford only had a Defensive Score of 13. That is 13 out of a possible score of 150. Pretty disappointing, since it would probably be breached quite quickly.

There was however a different kind of shield. It was not listed under Defensive Constructs like the rest of the Shields but under Recuperation Buffs. They immediately knew they had found something interesting when they saw it.

*Grace Period:

Effect: Grants a 48 hours shield after your Node Village was under attack. The shield will forbid any enemy entity from entering the zone of your Node Village. It will also lay a Veil of Secrecy around your Node Village. People who have been to the Village before will be able to sense it, foreign entities will not. Enemies of all kinds will also be subject to the Veil of Secrecy effect..

Grace Period triggers only after an attack if the Node controlling party was bested in a fight but the Node itself wasn’t claimed.

As the effects of Grace Period run out, there is a one hour period where no shield effects can be triggered and a 48 hour period in which the effect of this building can’t be triggered again, even if the Node controlling party was bested again.

Costs: 110 Mana Shards*

The major drawback of the shield was that they couldn’t activate any sort of shield for one hour after the 48 hour period ended and that they wouldn’t be able to activate the buildings effect for another 48 hours after that.

On its own, the Grace Period wouldn’t do much good for them, but Dave had found a loophole. Or at least they hoped so. The Grace Period shield was listed under the Buildings category, belonging to the Shields subcategory.

There were two main categories of things on could buy in the Node menu. Upgrads and Buildings. While most Upgrades to your Node or Node Village could only be bought once, Buildings could be bought multiple times. So technically they should be able to buy two Grace Periods.

With two Grace Perios they would only have to lay low for one hour every 48 hours and then they could activate the other. The way the effect description read, it should be possible.

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That was only covering part of their problem though, as long as the Nodefoxes were still able to see their Node, they could simply wait the shield out and overwhelm them after.

So they needed another upgrade. This one fortunately was simpler to find, more common and less expensive.

*Shroud:

Effect: Hide the Node and the Node Village from any Node Maps, Node finding Skills under Level 25 and the Mana senses of most entities under Rank 4.

Cost: 55 Coins.*

Just hiding the Node on the Node Maps wouldn’t be worth much to them, since the Nodefoxes had most likely already noticed the Node on their maps and would be looking for it. If they simply combed through the area it would only be a matter of time before they stumbled upon their camp.

One thing they had learned from Bixby before their discussion turned heated yesterday, was that sometimes Nodes could simply vanish. In a newly formed plane Mana Nodes were inherently a bit unstable. If the other Nodes around were enough to carry the ambient Mana, unnecessary Nodes would sometimes simply vanish, freeing more Mana flow towards the other Nodes.

So their strategy pretty much consisted of hiding their Node away from detection and then using Grace Period to make them completely unperceivable, having the shield effect as a nice last resort. They hoped that the Nodefoxes would simply come to the conclusion that the Node must’ve reentered into the flow of free Mana and stopped looking for it.

The problem was how they would trigger Grace Period to activate. Max had the idea to simply stage a fight where he would lose, hoping it would trigger the effect.

Max speculated he could mark Dave as an enemy and exclude him from the benefits his allies would get from the Node. Then Dave would beat him in a fight, hopefully triggering Grace Period ability.

Since Dave had been to the Node before, he would be able to perceive their village. If Max could add him to the list of allies again, he would probably also get access to the village again. Hopefully.

There was no evidence that would be the case though and there were many flaws in the plan. If the Node wouldn’t recognize Dave as a real enemy, Grace Period wouldn’t trigger. If the 48 hour no activation effect from one Grace Period also inhibited the other one for some reason, their strategy would be useless. And even if it didn’t and Max couldn’t allow Dave to reenter the safety of their Node Village, he would be a sitting duck for the Nodefoxes to find.

That wasn’t even the only problem they had. Even disregarding the luck factor of not being discovered during the time when the shields would be down, they still were pretty much trapped.

They would be safe from the Nodefoxes, but they couldn’t leave. It seemed to be the only way they would be safe. Still they would be forced to hide for who knows how long, trapped and never knowing when they could be found. A thought that Mira also had.

“... and even if it works, we can’t stay here forever. We would be trapped and it would only be a matter of time until they would find us.”

“Yes Mira is right. You may have found a real loophole there, but I think we should still run.” Sarah said, siding with Mira.

Max smiled in return, turning towards her. “Yeah at first I thought so too, but then we found something else.”

He held his hand out and rotated his palm upwards. The familiar soft blue light appeared and formed into another hologram. This time it was only a giant text box, or rather it was the description for one particular item.

*Single Use Teleportation Token:

Effect: Will teleport up to 100 entities to another location. Location may be chosen or may be random. Location has to be on the same plane and can’t be claimed Node territory. Token is single use.

Cost: 2000 Coins.*

Of course they had been looking at the teleportation buildings from the beginning, as they could’ve been the simplest solution to their problem. Unfortunately almost every teleportation building was either still locked or not even remotely in their price range.

The same can be said for the Single Use Teleportation Token though. The only reason their plan wasn’t to simply use the token and teleport away, was that the token was too expensive. Way too expensive.

With the 250 coins Max had to his name, even disregarding the costs for the other upgrades, they weren’t even close to being able to afford it.

“Say again, how does this help us? Did I mishear or haven’t you just said you had 250 coins not 2000?” Sarah said.

“Well yes, but we might have a solution to it. Bixby correct me if I’m wrong, but as far as we’ve found out, there are three ways to get more coins.” Dave said, holding three fingers up.

“One is for Max to level up, coins are a special reward for leveling up in the Node Domain. The second option are buildings that create coins passively, kind of like a farm. Those are useful but still a little too expensive for us right now. Lastly, Max gets coins as a reward for his quests. But not just for his Domain quests, no he also has access to a few quests from the Node. Those reward him with coins or upgrades for the Node Village.” Dave took a step back and gestured for Max to continue.

With a showman’s bow, Max took over the explanation. “It just so happens to be that creating a Node Village and inviting 5 people into my Village is the first quest, granting me a whopping 175 coins. That’s just enough for the most basic version of the coin farms. That will make it only a matter of time before we have enough coins for the teleportation token.”

As they finished laying out their complete plan, both men turned to Bixby again. As did everybody else in the group. Except for Ryland, who was peeling his fourth banana.

“Those farms aren’t quick. And there are many if’s in the plan. But I think it may just work. At least it’s worth a try, I think it’s our best shot.”

Sarah and Mira still didn’t look fully convinced, Ryland was neutral, making Sam the deciding voice.

“I actually like the idea. If Bixby says that can really work, then I’m all for it. Besides, I never want to step into that god forsaken jungle again.”

So their decision was made.