The Dragon's Wrath: Shadows in the Flame Read online

  That was the Viking way after all. They will rebuild and restructure their village and prepare themselves for another attack. Then when they are ready, they’ll seek vengeance and attempt to beat this dead horse back into his grave. Only they might find it quite a bit more difficult this time around. Hah, maybe just a little bit more difficult.

  And while my mind was preoccupied with various thoughts on FWB and Dragon’s Breach, the village had crept up within visual range almost as if on cue. My home certainly looked different from the last time I saw it. In one word… developed.

  Gone were the burned out buildings and empty walls as a new village stood in its place. All of it replaced with new buildings, new walls, towers, a moat, and even two makeshift bridges. This was not the same village as before. Everything had been upgraded and improved. If someone wanted to raid me they would be in for a much tougher fight this time around.

  I was certain of that much.

  From the boat I could see through the open gate that the critical infrastructure had been completed along with the main residences, which were one-story buildings above ground with two floors underneath. Next was the palisade that had been rebuilt to roughly ten to twelve feet tall at different parts along with a rampart directly behind, similar in theme to the prior setup only a bit taller and thicker all around.

  Small channels were also dug throughout the village to double as a source of fresh water within the walls and connected with the moat on the outside perimeter that served to keep the unwanted out. The two bridges into the village were a simple collective of rolled logs for now, with drawbridges planned at some point in the future.

  Even the four guard towers built against the walls had been completed while I was gone, with the fifth that would serve as a makeshift lighthouse starting to take shape on the mountain cliff at the edge of the river.

  The four-hundred yard perimeter had also been successfully cleared of all trees and markers were placed at one-hundred yard intervals for future reference if needed. Though I didn’t have any form of ancient artillery, I did believe the guard towers would be more than adequate with their numerous arrow slits and windows that were large enough for my casters to easily and safely use to bombard the enemy with impunity.

  If they thought Dragon’s Breach was a burned out village filled with squatters on scorched earth, well… they would eventually find out that they were sorely mistaken. Of course that assumes they even make it this far North a second time. Steps would be taken to prevent that from happening. If they did make it here I would have to applaud their conviction. Life wasn’t going to be easy for them in the foreseeable future.

  Ah, what would life be without conflict?

  Mighty boring I might imagine.

  All the details from the forums on FWB and their status only served to drum up my eagerness to get back to work. Thankfully there were only a few minutes left before we would reach our destination. Home for the lot of us… it wouldn’t be long now.

  Taking a second to think over my plans, I couldn’t help but glance back at the estuary that we recently passed through. There were a lot of ideas in my head but not a whole lot of time at the moment. Planning and delegating would become essential.

  “What’s next,” I mumbled to myself as we finally pulled up to the shore and beached the ship. Quickly hopping over the side with the others, water splashed indiscriminately as the men and women left the boat sitting in the water for the others to haul off as they made their way back to their lodgings.

  Most were exhausted and in need of sustenance and sleep.

  The men and women had earned their keep and a feast was already prepared, though there wouldn’t be any real celebration this time around. No premature excitement over a single successful mission, instead they were given all the food that they could eat and a day’s rest for their work. That was all they required, all that they needed.

  “Come on, jump Kate,” I said quietly as I opened my arms to catch her.

  Standing knee deep in the water, I waited as she looked at me with her eyes half-closed. Even Katherine looked about ready to pass out from where she was standing as the last one still on the boat. After a few seconds went by, she sleepily obeyed and threw herself overboard and right into my arms.

  Carrying her the entire way to the cabin, I couldn’t help but wonder how difficult such a simple action would be in real life with my weakened real body. Life was simply better in the game and every time I logged on or off, I was reminded of it.

  It was no matter though.

  After setting Kate down on our bed, I made my way back out towards the center of the village with grandiose plans on my mind. What I had planned for next, now that my raid had been completed, was to continue rebuilding Dragon’s Breach.

  I wasn’t satisfied with what I had.

  What came next… well, I wanted a Town.

  I wanted this Village to upgrade into a Town but sadly there weren’t a lot of details out there. I imagined the general idea was that you either reached a population quota or you hit a building goal. Those seemed to be the most likely milestones that could or would be required for one to upgrade into a larger settlement. Settlement hierarchy being what it was, there were already loose guidelines based on population and services in real life.

  The game couldn’t be too far off, I figured.

  I also highly doubted that the Town requirement had a reputation stipulation as that would limit guilds and players severely in their developments. My reputation stat was incredibly high as well, so the idea that it had to be even higher didn’t really make a lot of sense to me. In the end my bet was on having a certain amount of unique service buildings available within a Village and that would in turn allow one to reclassify as a Town.

  For all I knew, a Town would likely offer me more options going forward.

  These were only guesses for now but I wanted to see them through.

  “Sigurd, I see you’ve returned,” called out Roald as he slowly walked over.

  “Aye, safe and sound, just like the rest,” I replied while extending a hand.

  Shaking my hand, the welcome was complete as Roald turned to the side and looked at the large open space in the center of the village. With his eyes fixated on the location, I couldn’t help but wonder if he had finished his side mission.

  “And, I trust your mission went just as well?” I asked after a few seconds had passed.

  “Not as well as you might be hoping,” he answered with a slight shrug to one side. “They are far too small in population and we are too far out of the way at the moment for them to send traders our way. I’m afraid the ones traveling will continue to be a one-sided affair, meaning I’ll be the only one traveling.”

  “That’s about what I expected,” I said sheepishly as a grin escaped me.

  “You… and here you have me sweating it out, thinking I had failed!”

  “Hah, Roald, I sent you because I wanted to implant the seed,” I started to explain while laughing away. “I wanted them to realize that trading from both sides would be readily available, that they could send people this way if needed.”

  “Bah! Don’t they know that already?” he shot back while throwing his arms up. “Trade requires two parties, they are already aware of such a thing! Idiocy!”

  “Hoho~ this was for your sake, even if you don’t realize it yet,” I said with a haughty laugh that he clearly didn’t appreciate. “We’re building a market next, right there where you’ve been staring. Eventually, those from the Northern Triangle will send their people here to get what they need. You’ll see soon enough. I’m saving you from a life on the road.”

  “And? Did they not already know that they could come here to request goods at any given time?” he continued to argue, clearly upset with me. “You know I hate that journey, marching through the marsh and that mountain pass. There was no need to send me!”

  “Ah you’re missing the point,” I stated calmly as I tried to appease his anger. “So long a
s you always go to them at scheduled intervals, they will continue to expect you to do so. They won’t move on their own, they’re far too small as you mentioned. They also aren’t aware that we have more to export than furs. Did you forget to mention that?”

  “No. Of course I wouldn’t forget,” he replied curtly.

  “So you mentioned that we had agriculture, industry, and other forms of production available to them and to the free populace of Andal?” I asked.

  “And?” he quickly blurted out while shaking his head.

  “They are now informed customers and we simply have to wait.”

  “Bah! You’re toying with me, I know it!” shouted Roald as he stormed off into the distance. I couldn’t help but laugh a bit more at the trader as he finally left my sight. His lack of flirtation had been draining on him and he was clearly more agitated than before.

  It was all for the best though, as the market was indeed my next building project.

  The market would be open at the center of the village, circular in nature around the actual center point, the enclosed bonfire that served as the spawn point of Dragon’s Breach. A large pathway would be left to ensure ease of travel, mostly dirt roads that would be packed and rolled smooth for now with stone and cobble roads somewhere in the future. The concept was a simple one. Packed dirt roads in a circle starting from the center and expanding out towards the inner walls of the palisade with straight roads crossing and connecting every so often.

  I didn’t have to worry about congestion or excessive foot traffic at the moment but in the future it could become an issue, thus a reduction in intersections and complicated crossroads was an essential thing. It was better to plan ahead than to have to tear apart buildings to make way for an improvement down the road.

  After the market was complete, I needed to construct individual buildings for all of my crafters that were currently working out of the lodge. Though the original lodge had plenty of space for them, I wanted to tear it down eventually and reconstruct it in the same design as the new main structure buildings. Two floors below ground with one above ground and an underground tunnel connecting them. There were two of those buildings now and I wanted to have a third to complete the living quarters for the NPCs.

  Each building could easily hold a hundred people but the bottom floors were musty from the overcrowding and lack of air flow. I had yet to figure out how to fix the circulation issue but as long as I kept the numbers down in each building it wouldn’t be too bad. Though that meant I needed three functional lodges for the NPCs at the minimum, along with a separate barracks for the troops.

  So far, each guard tower had been built to house five NPCs with the first floor serving as their living quarters while the second floor served as a platform for them to attack from. Simple designs yet practical and tested through the ages. Those arrangements kept twenty-five of my combatants housed but I still had a few others left over.

  Maybe the answer was more guard towers.

  “Yeah, I rather like that plan,” I mumbled to myself as I continued to scan the vicinity.

  Waving my hands about as I opened up the [Menu] and started to browse through the various tabs, I finally stopped at the [NPC Recruiter] and spent a few minutes searching for hidden gems. Sadly there weren’t any real deals to be had and I wasn’t exactly rolling in the dough at the moment either.

  What little coin I gathered from all of the intruders couldn’t even buy one NPC at the current prices and with how hectic the raid was there wasn’t any time to loot those bodies. Plus if my NPCs killed a player then whatever coin was dropped was theirs to keep.

  Spoils of war and all.

  Exiting out of the [Menu] after I finished checking the [Player Population] tab, I was now temporarily relieved of my neurotic desire to psychotically stalk the numbers that were showcased. Player population was still at a lovely single digit of one.

  That made me happy.

  The northern territory roughly filled out a space about three-hundred to four-hundred miles in length running north to south and somewhere between fifty and a hundred miles wide east to west. When I started there were maybe five-thousand players in the North, with probably five in total within a hundred miles of my location here.

  Now things were changing though, population numbers in the North were rumored to be around ten-thousand and there were actually a handful of players coming in and out of Andal only sixty-some miles away. There were likely a few dozen players within a hundred miles nowadays… whether that was good or bad was yet to be seen.

  Twenty-some thousand square miles of land made for a minimum of two square miles per player if they all spread out equally though. That wasn’t terribly crowded by any stretch of the imagination and thanks in large part to the actual crowding around the southern border by the Central Kingdoms, this far north it was closer to fifty square miles of space per player. I really couldn’t complain about space and privacy.

  Ah well, the game was still new. Hardly more than a few months old so it was to be expected. Change would be coming. I’ve enjoyed my peace and though things were moving quicker than expected, I wasn’t entirely unready for what’s to come.

  Well… maybe I should amend that.

  I wasn’t ready the last time and though I did enjoy the peace while it lasted, I can’t pretend that I’m not still bothered by what had transpired. Seventeen days real time since Selene died and it still ate at me deep down. All the self-distractions and pep talks could only disguise and misdirect my feelings on the matter for so long.

  The denial part of the process was pretty much skipped instantly. I wasn’t fool enough to deny the truth before my eyes. Anger was stage one right from the get go… and as far as bargaining? Hah, there would be no bargaining. I guess that put me in the depression part of the model. Acceptance was next, supposedly.

  Yeah, I think I preferred the angry portion of the stages.

  Selene wasn’t even real anyways.

  “Allllll righty then,” I said loudly while snapping my fingers and sticking my tongue out to try and get my mind back on track. “Let’s get this started, shall we?”

  Of course, I was still talking to myself.

  None of that mattered though. Off to the side I could clearly see a few idle warriors standing around chatting about who knows what.

  They would be recruited for the cause.

  Waltzing towards their location, a simple wave got their attention as they met me halfway. A short and quick discussion followed and was all it took for them to move out and find their brethren that were left inside the village walls. One party was always out hunting, doubling as a scouting party while the leftover combatants stayed inside the walls for emergency. So for now the only issue was with my numbers.

  I really needed more NPC combatants.

  “Sir Sigurd, there’s twenty-one of us accounted for, ready and willing,” said one of the low-level warriors as he returned from his search. That number included non-combatants though as there couldn’t have been more than a handful of warriors left, what with the majority of them given the day off.

  “Excellent, how’s the stockpile of wood?” I calmly asked.

  “About three men tall and tens as long sir,” he replied while stretching his arms out in a crude display. “I think we’ve enough wood to last us a year.”

  “Hah, I bet you we’ll be done with it in a month son.”

  Once the remaining stragglers had moseyed on over, it was time to start the process for the umpteenth time. Logs needed to be moved, cut down to size, and arranged to fit the desired theme. Holes would need to be dug and dirt would need to be leveled. Then when all was said and done, the finishing touches would be turned over to the carpenter and his assistants as I moved on to the next project.

  Rinse and repeat.

  Chapter 77: Limited Potential

  (Wednesday, November 17th Game Day / Sunday, April 18th Real Day)

  Construction on the market place had been progressing smoothly and
not more than twenty-four hours since I began we were already reaching the halfway point. An open design with logs placed upright into the dirt in a circular pattern with permanent stands and stalls between them. Off a bit in front and behind were more upright logs with the intended purpose of having them serve as tent poles in the future, since at the moment we were lacking the raw materials for a canopy.

  To produce a canopy my tailor slash weaver needed wool or linen in amounts I wasn’t able to readily procure. Sheep would be needed to fill that void. They were the next on my list of livestock to acquire. Sheep and goats that is. Otherwise, she was more than capable of creating whatever I needed.

  She had been hard at work for a few months in-game and was easily the highest level craftsman I had. She was already level forty-five, though I had little clue as to what that entailed. From my limited understanding the higher the level a craftsman was, the more complicated the work they could produce along with faster completion times and higher quality. Also, higher success chance with specialty items.

  When considering there was only one person in this village that took care of all of the complicated tasks when it came to equipping and clothing every single person, it made sense that she had leveled far quicker than the rest.

  She was entitled to a very fancy loom house of her own, it was well deserved and also on the to-do list… ah, my to-do list was getting longer by the day. In progress was a second longship of the same design, a Karvi class that could function in multiple roles.

  Stigr was hard at work there by himself, though the wood had all been prepped for him and the nails, rivets, and other iron-related items were being churned out by Ansgar and Enok with relative ease. Regular production of weapons had slowed a bit as raw materials were starting to run out, which meant I needed to either trade for more iron or go back and farm a dungeon or two. A part of me was wondering if I could send my NPCs into an instanced dungeon to farm, that would probably be too convenient though.