by Kyle Johnson
Of course, Aranos tossed that idea almost instantly. That plan struck him as a good way to lose his House and noble Title to some devious player who figured out a way to usurp it. No, he would have to do it himself, but there was no reason he had to handle everything at once.
“Give me the three things that you think are most pressing, Lorsan,” Aranos finally replied. “Just three; the ones that absolutely should not wait.”
The elf frowned and looked down at the papers in his hand. He riffled through the documents, his lips moving and his face considering. A few moments later, he nodded as if coming to a decision. “All of these requests have varying importance, my Lord,” he answered. “And yet, were I forced to choose three – as I apparently am – I would say that these are the most immediate.
“First, while you inherited many structures, you did not inherit the manpower to run them. At the moment, many of your estates lie empty, unprotected, and unmanaged. You have farms that need tending, warehouses that are not being loaded and unloaded, and valuables unprotected. Your personal reputation will protect you for some time, and I know that you intend for the Travelers here to help safeguard your estate in the city, but you need many more hirelings and guards, and you must appoint others you can trust to manage these estates for you.”
Aranos paused; his first thought had been to ask Lorsan if the elf could just do that himself, but he stopped himself before he said anything. He didn’t really know Lorsan, and until he did, he’d want to be careful how much authority he gave the man. He decided to talk to Geltheriel, instead. She’d been raised to eventually take over her family’s House, and although she gave that up to become a Keeper and then his Follower, she still probably knew a lot more about this than he did.
“Second,” the elf continued, seemingly unaware of his Lord’s inner struggle, “You must decide which structures you will retain, and which you have no need for. As you may have observed, you possess far more buildings than are required for a House of your Rank, and it may be that some of these structures will not serve your House in the future. Destroying them will return some of those resources and Construction Points to you, so you may use them elsewhere.”
“Yeah, I was going to ask you about that. I have a list of resources and zero Construction Points,” Aranos observed, peering at his House screen once more. “I assume you can use Construction Points to create structures?”
“Indeed, my Lord,” the elf nodded. “Although you need skilled workers and a blueprint for that building, as well. It is possible to construct a structure without using Construction Points, but building times are increased tenfold.
“As you may have noticed, you receive a certain number of Construction Points per week. These are updated daily, so you would normally have Construction Points available tomorrow. However, you must also pay points to maintain your existing structures, and currently, maintenance will require more points than you are generating. This means you have no Construction Points incoming, and some of your structures will began to decay until they are unusable.”
The elf handed a sheet of paper to Aranos. “Here is a list of your existing structures. I have marked the ones I consider vital and the ones that you might safely dispose of. Others, I have marked as questionable, as they may or may not be useful depending on the Path you choose.”
Aranos took the sheet and glanced over it, taking a screenshot of the list to peruse later; immediately, a blinking notification appeared, but he saved it for later. “You can explain Paths to me later on, and I’ll look over this as soon as I can,” he assured the majordomo. “What’s the last thing?”
“Lastly,” the elf finished, “there is a Council of Patriarchs scheduled for the end of the week, and it will be expected that you attend, as the newest Patriarch of the newest House. You will need formalwear and…”
The man cut off as Aranos waved his hand. “That’s not going to happen,” he said flatly. “Not only am I not the slightest bit interested in politics, I’m not even planning on being in Eredain at the end of the week.”
“You are leaving the Stronghold, my Lord?” the elf asked in surprise. “May I ask where you are going?”
“Into the Blightlands,” Aranos supplied, not really feeling like explaining about Geltheriel’s Cleansing Quest and how they would be traveling to Antas soon. “I’ll probably be gone at least a week, as well.”
Lorsan sighed. “My Lord…that makes finding guards and staff an urgent priority, if I may be so bold. Only your reputation as the Wizard who defeated Keryth protects your lands right now, and if you are absent from the Elven Realms for a prolonged time…”
“Then people might stop worrying about how I would react,” Aranos nodded. “I have an idea for that, and I hope I can get you started on it by the end of the day.”
“That would be preferable, my Lord,” the elf said with something akin to relief. “However, as you have dismissed my third item, I think it only fair that I be allowed to offer one more, one that may be necessary for the first two, in fact. You have said we would speak of this later, but your departure makes it an immediate need. You must choose a Path for your House, and I would ask that you select one before you depart the Stronghold.”
“Okay, so what exactly is a Path, then?”
Lorsan straightened. “Your House’s Path is the role you wish it to pursue in elven society. You have no doubt seen this in other Houses – House Meluiben, from which your Follower descends, follows the Path of the Alchemist, for example. There are myriad options you can choose, based upon the type of House you wish to build, and it is a necessary decision if you wish to advance your House further.”
“So, I can’t just have a House? I have to choose a Path?”
“Indeed, my Lord. Not only does your House’s Path proclaim to the Elven Realms what to expect from House Evenshade, it will also provide a sustainable source of income, something for which your House will be known. Exxidor was a House of Duelists and hired their services out to other, less magically inclined Houses. Would you wish to continue that tradition?”
“Nope,” Aranos replied simply. “I haven’t really thought about it, to be honest. I suppose I could just focus on Enchanting items. I’m pretty decent at it.”
“Not to impugn my Lord’s abilities in any way,” Lorsan said tactfully, “but I feel I should remind you that House Gilris is the preeminent producer of Enchanted goods in Eredain, and that while the Scion is not the Grandmaster her sire was, she is still a Master of the art. Can you produce Masterwork-quality items, my Lord?”
“Not consistently,” Aranos shook his head, remembering that the elder of House Gilris had been one of the ones murdered by Keryth using the flawed memory stone that, even now, sat in Aranos’ inventory. “I’ve only managed to Enchant one Masterwork item, but I have made a couple of Excellent and lots of Fine ones.”
Lorsan seemed to freeze for a moment, his unflappable exterior showing a brief moment of surprise. The elf cleared his throat and turned back to his papers. “Forgive me, my Lord. I was…unprepared for your words. If you can, indeed, produce Excellent or better work, and can occasionally create a Masterwork, it would be an acceptable starting point for sustainable income. That is, depending on how quickly you can produce such items.”
Aranos shrugged. “I can work on it when I have time,” he hedged, not really sure when that time might happen. As he considered, an idea popped into his head. “Lorsan, I’m pretty sure that I could make better items if I had better materials. Where in the Stronghold could I find samples of Rare or Exotic metals, or maybe even buy a few ingots?”
“I am certain that any of the Smithing Houses in the Stronghold would have the information you seek, my Lord. However, I suggest speaking with the Loremasters of House Waeslar, as they are indebted to you for discovering Keryth’s betrayal and avenging their elder’s death. I can make arrangements for one of them to visit the estate, hopefully before you depart, if you wish.”
“Yeah, that would
be really helpful, Lorsan. Thank you.” Aranos smiled at the older man. “If I can craft better Enchanted items using better metal, it’ll be easier for you to sell them.” He sighed and rose to his feet. “Is that all for right now?”
“That will suffice, my Lord. Please consider my requests carefully, as they are of great importance to the House.”
“I will, Lorsan. For now, though, I’m going to try to train my Intelligence and Wisdom Stats, so please be sure I’m not bothered for the next hour or so.”
“Of course, my Lord.”
Aranos sighed as he recalled that memory. His morning had gone downhill from there, and the reason for that was the other of his other great sources of frustration: Travelers.
Aranos wasn’t irony-impaired, so he understood the mild hypocrisy involved in being annoyed at Travelers. After all, ‘Traveler’ was just the name the NPCs in Singularity Online used to describe players, and Aranos was just another player in the game. In the real world, he was Jeff, a computer programmer who worked extensively on designing the very game he was in, but to him, that was an entirely different life. Here, in Ka, he was Aranos the Sorcerer, and Jeff the programmer didn’t exist. While he was in game, this world was his real one.
Unfortunately, most of the twenty or so Travelers that had been conscripted by Keryth, the former Patriarch of House Exxidor, didn’t feel the same way. This was just a game to them – a realistic one, to be sure, but still just a game – and they insisted on treating it as such. They were supposed to be training with Aranos’ NPC allies, advancing their Skills to the level of what amounted to basic competence, but – it was not going well, if the sound of shouting and occasional curses were anything to go by.
After Keryth’s aborted attempt to convert the Stronghold of Eredain into a Fallen Realm, the Travelers had been left in a sort of limbo. They had been working with Keryth, but there were some mitigating circumstances. The Travelers hadn’t known at first what Keryth wanted of them; they had just accepted a Quest that seemed almost too good to be true. Once they realized that the Patriarch had hired them to kill Aranos and his allies – and to occupy the guards in the Stronghold so that Keryth could work unhindered – they’d turned against the elf Lord and helped Aranos defeat him.
Plus, they were Travelers, and the Elven Realms held all Travelers in a certain reverence. The elves had been given certain prophecies that the Travelers would come and would either free Ka from the Darkness shrouding it or plunge it into eternal night. Lily, the first Traveler the elves of Eredain had met, seemed more likely to do the latter, but Aranos had managed to change their minds about the nature of Travelers. He’d freed the Fallen Realm of Haerobel, restored a lost race or three to the world of Ka, Redeemed some of the Forest of Eredain from Corruption, and he’d been the one who had defeated Keryth in a Wizard’s Duel, saving the city from becoming a place of Darkness and eternal slavery. For that, he’d been named Elf-Friend, and he had the elves’ more or less complete trust. The fact that it took all of that to gain their trust was probably a big reason why he was in the situation he was in, now, though.
Golloron, the Elder of Eredain, hadn’t been keen on allowing the Travelers to remain in the city. In fact, he’d been of the opinion that the Travelers should be locked out of the Stronghold and left to their own devices. Aranos had argued against this, with some success. He’d explained how the Travelers had gotten themselves into their situation and that, if they were barred from the city, they’d probably consider themselves outcasts and start attacking Eredain’s patrols and citizens. No one wanted that: Travelers would be reborn when they died, but natives of Ka would not.
The Elder had decided the matter in a way that Aranos had to admit was both ingenious and a bit vindictive. He’d allowed the Travelers to stay…but only if Aranos took personal responsibility for them. They would stay on Aranos’ estate, he would be in charge of them, and he would answer for their behavior if they started treating the city’s inhabitants like, well…like NPCs in most games. Players tended to see NPCs as a commodity and nothing more. They could provide or advance Quests, they could give information and directions, and some provided valuable services to the players. The rest could be safely ignored or even mistreated with impunity, and for some players, hunting down NPCs was a convenient way to earn XP, money, and even infamy if they were playing a villain.
Normally, that wasn’t that big of a deal. NPCs were nothing but scripted characters, and if one was killed, another would be spawned with the same script. If they weren’t, then they probably weren’t important to the game and their loss just removed some local flavor, nothing more. In Singularity, though, NPCs were born, grew, and developed organically, and each was a unique individual. When one was killed, they were gone permanently, and if they were vital to a Quest…well, that Quest could no longer be completed.
Aranos had warned Veronica, his AI virtual guide in the game, about that possibility a while ago, and he had a feeling that Keryth’s ability to forcibly change the respawn points of the Travelers so that they were essentially captives was the AIs response to out-of-control Travelers. That would be a convenient method to imprison a player, although it could obviously be abused. In fact, Keryth’s actions had been an example of that abuse, and several of the players had been on the verge of logging out of the game rather than enduring it. Aranos figured that the AIs, in their quest to understand human motivations and explore how human cognitive processes worked, had done that deliberately, pushing the players to the brink. Now that they’d seen where that boundary was, he hoped they’d rework that ability so that it was only temporary or required the approval of local authorities.
What all this meant was that Aranos needed to find a way for the Travelers to be useful and help the Stronghold. That should have been simple, since there were always Quests to go into the Blightlands and hunt the Corrupted creatures there. The thing was, the Travelers weren’t ready for that; most of them were under level 5, and few of them had any Skills or Spells above the Novice rank. Singularity wasn’t a regular game, with clearly marked Quests and simple Skill progressions, and he guessed that they hadn’t been lucky enough to have a Class trainer who forced them to learn these things, as his had.
Aranos was trying to fix that by arranging for the players to receive training from some of his NPC allies. The problem was, the Travelers weren’t really paying the attention they should to the elves attempting to train them, and those elves were growing increasingly annoyed with their charges. That made them more prone to yelling, which made the Travelers even less inclined to listen – and the end result was that it was now impossible for him to properly use the mana crystal he’d discovered in his new manor house to train his Wisdom and Intelligence Stats over the clamor, despite all his attempts.
House Exxidor, the previous owners of this estate, had been a House of Wizards, so they had extensive paraphernalia to help Wizards train and grow. Aranos was a Sorcerer, a caster who designed and crafted his own Spells rather than learning new ones by rote, but the training methods were pretty much the same for both classes. He had to draw mana into his internal spirals, process it, and return it through his mana channels, constantly, for an hour or so. That took concentration, but the random curses and laughter from the Travelers in the practice arena below the main house put any notion of having a peaceful training session out of his head, leaving him no choice but to head down to see what all the commotion was about. Silma, his celestial wolf Companion, raised her head to look at him as he walked away, but he assured the fenrin that he wasn’t going anywhere important, and she settled back to rest. The nine-foot long wolf was an implacable hunter and a demon in battle, but upon reaching adulthood, she’d apparently gained an extreme fondness for naps.
The main door that led to the estate did not look directly down onto the practice arena. He guessed that the former owners hadn’t wanted a reminder that, even as Wizards, they needed mundane guards to protect their goods and holdings, so they’d tucked the
training spaces around the back of the large house. That meant he had to walk completely around the manor just to get a glimpse of the various tanks engaged in what he thought was supposed to be mock combat but in reality looked like a bunch of kids playing at sword-fighting. He watched as two melee-types whaled at each other with wooden training swords, treating the weapons like nothing but big sticks, while the Elven Warrior and Guard Lieutenant Saphielle stood nearby, her disapproval written plainly on her face.
“No, that is absolutely incorrect!” she shouted, stepping in between the pair and effortlessly snatching their weapons away from them. “You have obviously not practiced any of the forms that I gave you, and were you to go into battle as you are, you would be little more than food for the first wolf pack or great cat that chanced upon you. Are you incapable of understanding, or do you simply choose to remain ignorant?”
Aranos grinned at the woman’s blunt, utterly undiplomatic speech – it was one of the reasons he enjoyed her company, because you always knew exactly where you stood with Saphielle – but the nearby Travelers were less impressed, judging by the looks on their faces. The Sorcerer sighed and walked down to the field, intending to tell the young woman that if she wanted the Travelers to listen, she probably needed to make an example of them. Before he reached the arena, though, one of the bigger Warriors made his advice moot anyway.
“You know, you keep telling us that we have to do things your way,” the large, muscular man said, crossing his beefy arms across his chest and moving to where he could stare down at the slim, blue-haired woman looking impassively back at him. “Aranos keeps telling us it’ll make us better, but I’ll bet I could take you right now. In fact…”
