First War

by Nathan Valerio

  He smiled as he saw that the balance had gone high into the green opening up a large range of possibility to recruit for the army to improve the defensive abilities he had. Akor knew he was experiencing the calm before the storm right now. It was now that he had to expand his army quickly.

  “Alright, with the tax money I can rapidly expand the military aspects.” He smiled faintly.

  Demon Lord Akor has officially separated city guard and the territory army. Guards will protect only the major settlements while the army will protect the territory from invading forces.

  Both forces are now recruiting.

  The message was sent out but only among NPCs, Akor didn’t trust players in the army, he wasn’t some rich family member where they had specialists just for these jobs. Such a position had to be cultivated and friends had to be obtained but he had none of that and he was distant from players.

  Next he set up the basics of the army structure following modern structure and terms.

  Army Formation

  Name

  Alternative name

  Number per unit

  Commander Rank

  Squad

  Section (Cavalry)

  4-10 Soldiers

  Sergeant

  Platoon

  16-40 Soldiers in 2 or more Squads

  Lieutenant

  Company

  Troop (Cavalry), Battery (Artillery)

  100-200 Soldiers in 3-5 Platoons

  Captain

  Battalion

  Squadron (Cavalry)

  4-6 Companies

  Lieutenant Colonel

  Brigade

  Group (Logistics or Special Forces)

  2-5 Battalions

  Colonel

  Final calculation for the formation of a Brigade.

  Minimum: 800 individuals

  Maximum: 6,000 individuals

  Akor was happy with this and pressed the ‘submit’ button for the structure.

  DING!

  Your intelligent and well structured military arrangement for your territory army has adhered to the principals of the Goddess of Wisdom and the God of Battle. Because of this basic formation has produced faith towards the two gods.

  “Eh?!” he muttered before holding his chin while looking at the message. “So there is another method to producing faith depending on the god. Because I used modern structuring, it made the sleeping gods gain faith.” He thought.

  He was deep in thought before shaking his head “For now I will make the smallest minimum for them following this. Four per squad with four squads in a platoon, three platoon in a company, four to a battalion and two for a brigade.” Akor said and nodded.

  With this distribution it would work best after they were all armored and sent to hunt in small parties. They would form coordination between small numbers and the strongest and smartest in command would be promoted as the platoon lieutenant and so on.

  With all his plans done, Akor stood up to go outside.

  Ding!

  Event Announcement

  All lord players have upgraded to the rank of town and have total control of their territory with a stable armed forces.

  Beware all, war has come to the land. Throughout all the lands, lords of all races have sprung up and have begun establishing their territories and their ambition grows to expand. The land will soon be covered in war and strife, lords and players have to work together to survive and possibly expand. The war for the thrones has begun and will cover the land in flames and blood.

  Territory Quest:

  The War of Kings

  As a Lord, you command a territory with many people under your command. With the coming of war, unbalance in all territory borders have loosened and have become blurred allowing for you to expand your power beyond your small corner of the world.

  Objective:

  Expand territory land by 2 times its current size.

  Place all Demon hearts 4/8

  Reward:

  Territory proportion to what you can conquer

  ???

  Failure:

  Territory destruction

  Akor’s eyes narrowed upon seeing the sudden event and knew that the storm had arrived. He stopped in his tracks and returned to the throne. He first upgraded the barracks and blacksmith to increase the output of items by increasing the number of furnaces and anvils available maxing it out under Tier 2.

  Finally he issued an order of recruitment which would cause all idle nonworking subordinates and minions to join the army at once. He also commissioned the production of armor and weapons in full scale from the mine in Prosperity. All coin production was stopped, and it was changed to full armor production.

  Akor also sent out commissions to players for bone weapons, purchasing it from them for the army expansion. Although it would make a financial burden when he barely had any money, it was all to be paid for through the taxes that would come. As long as he survived, he would have greatly expanded and would no longer have to worry about money if he could discover more copper veins to produce coin or raid the treasury of other lords.

  As such, the economy development mentality was pushed aside when push came to shove and after the constant build up, he was finally going to put the motors of his territory into action to show his worth as a lord.

  ***

  “The latest event of [Magic Life] has caused a huge stir among all the players from the solar system no matter what server. Second Life Inc. waited for every last lord to gain full control of their territory to hold this event as a ‘response’ to the rise in lord players. As the mission all lords have says ‘War of the Kings’. This name is a message to all players who are joining, both guilds and lords, this is going to be a big bloody war that won’t end quickly!” The hyped reported said on the TV.

  At the moment, five people were sitting in Lucas’ house. In their hands were bowls of noodles made with the nutribar. Lucas slurped quickly as he watched and looked at the invited group.

  The four others were Sam, Vince, Madison and Sasori. The previously invited weakest lords, all of which came off the list one by one as they passed the event to build a temple themselves and produced their own religions through their own combinations of gods which were all different from Akor.

  “So have you guys already prepared your armies?” Lucas asked.

  “Undead have the advantage that makes them easy to recruit.” Sasori said and slurped up the noodles. “The only disadvantage…” he said with his mouth full before swallowing and continuing, “... is that they are dumber and research speed is slower and that they are restricted under sunlight. Frankly, my choice in having the Goddess of Death, Life and Light as my three primary gods got many laughs in the viewer site but my vision is in the far future where I might have an undead army that will not be affected by sunlight.” He said.

  “That is a hard path, you can’t do evil things.” Lucas said.

  He shrugged his shoulders at the comment.

  "I’m having a headache because of elves slow growth rate and birth rate.” Vince said with a frown before he drank some juice to help with the heat of the food. “1:20 individuals, is a seriously annoying birth rate, and it takes a long time for them to reach maturity.” he complained. “Demons and undead have it good.” He said.

  “You think? It’s not that easy because they are gluttons. With how bad Hellish Badlands is, we have a seriously hard time producing food.” Sam complained as well but then grinned, “At least the higher level monsters that survive there have given me some strong minions but the overall strength is really low and my equipment is really restricted to bone equipment.” She sighed.

  “Humans don’t have as many problems except for the political side.” Madison said and even rubbed his head with a frown from the hardships he had while holding the bowl in the other, “There is so much bullshit and etiquette we have to follow and the church isn’t as ‘open’ as you guys. Each god has an established organization so opening temples for one god wil
l bring that organization and so on. It’s such a damn pain dealing with those priests.” He cursed and furiously ate.

  The others laughed at him. Humans had the least trouble, material wise or population wise but their political side was very developed and had to be taken into account. Although human lords weren’t exactly close to other human nations, they weren’t far either. They spread far enough to not interfere with them in early game but would be direct enemies in late game. It wasn’t much different for demons that were stuck in the territory around the Hellish Badlands where demons were concentrated.

  “Oh right, Lucas, I saw a strange research subject when I watched your video feed.” Vince said, “What was that church research all about, the one with the prototype vitality tree or something?” He asked.

  Lucas stopped in the middle of eating and began to think. He indeed saw there was such a research subject, but he hadn’t explicitly checked it before the event message came. He put on the glasses and brought up the window.

  "It’s research for one of the primary gods.” He replied after reading and understanding. “They are researching a way to evolve the demon wood so that instead of being a massive vitality drainer, which they are if not raised properly, they become a life giving tree.” Lucas said and removed his VR tech.

  “Which god wants something like that?” Madison asked curious. Most human gods are active so there isn’t something so curious as the demon’s who get to awaken gods themselves.

  “Adaldir, God of Prosperity. His greatest desire is ‘to see a demon king revitalize the Hellish Badlands’. This is the easiest god desire among the top three gods to fulfill.” Lucas said.

  “Oh, then these might be fertilizer trees.” Sasori said. “They are trees that capture nitrogen in the air and fix it to the ground as well as prevent fertilizer and soil erosion and retain water better improving conditions of the soil for other plants.”

  “Oh, you mean like those plants terraformers use to cultivate desert planets with atmospheres. I remember watching a documentary about that. They start around surviving water points or make an exposed oasis and fill the area around the water with these kinds of trees that produce lots of shade to stop the sand and dust in the air making it settle. This allow water to survive under the heat and allowing them to make waterways that slowly expand outwards.” Sam said.

  "I don’t know, the church is in itself a separate but controlled organization made by the king to promote their ideals. After all, even after the current pope and my head advisor made the rules and laws of my territory, I still checked it to make sure they were within my preference.” Lucas said.

  “Hey, we never asked but what are you doing to prepare for the coming war?” Vince asked Lucas.

  “Making my first Brigade.” Lucas said simply.

  The other four looked at each other and finished their bowls and went to check the setup that Lucas made in details to see if they could adapt it while Lucas went to see their preparations to see if he could give advice or improve his own design.

  Chapter 13

  “What do you all think about the announcement?” Akor asked his ‘elite’ group. Among them were all the Tier 2 demons, his queen and his royal mage who was already level 9 and almost ready to upgrade.

  "It is an excellent opportunity to develop a powerful army, my Lord. With war happening, there will be many targets for our army to grow.” Valring said with her eyes glowing.

  “Morrath squash for lord!” Morrath said punching his own palm with his big fist.

  “My Lord, I have one concern.” Idre said looking at Akor.

  “Go on?”

  “The existing scouts have already been sent and new scouts are being trained. What the other scouts found are many tribes, from what they say, these tribes are all developing specialized troops. Each village is focusing on making one type of troop much stronger instead of spreading the effort.” Idre said.

  “What is your concern?” Akor asked.

  “What is the special troop of my lord’s territory?” she asked.

  Everyone paused and Akor looked at Valring who shrugged.

  Indeed this wasn’t something Akor had thought of so he decided to look at the reports. The villages he had encountered were only to the east and north and most were imp villages which were breeding warriors.

  He looked at their development and noticed something, none of them bred animals. Suddenly things clicked in his head and Akor’s eyes shone, “We will focus on breeding light and heavy cavalry. The mountain goats and wolves we captured and bred are all adapted to the terrain we live in making them much better for war in our terrain. The animal ranch has just been expanded, we can place more of them around and send a few pairs of animals to breed in each village and we will be able to rear many mounts.” Akor said.

  “The time needed for this isn’t short my lord.” Valring said.

  “And what is the development pace of the surrounding tribes?” Akor asked.

  Valring looked at the royal mage who took out a scroll. “Master, it says that a lord like the kobold lord will appear in at least 30 days at this rate.” Adok said.

  “That is plenty, we can leave the cavalry as a trump card instead of a front-line fighter. We will develop our fighters for now. How many were we able to recruit from the order I sent out?” he asked. He needed at least 800 to make a brigade.

  “About 1,000 my Lord.” Valring said.

  He nodded not worried about the number that was a fifth of the population.

  “So one brigade, huh. Follow the arrangements I mentioned before. Four to a squad, four squads to a platoon, three platoon in a company, four company in a battalion and two battalion in a brigade, a total of 800 members. The remaining 200 will be split into two groups of 100, one for guards and one for ration carriers, weapon repairers and all other such needed craft classes that could improve the chances of keeping moral high.” Akor said.

  “Ah!” They all exclaimed.

  The last group of words shocked everyone because they never once thought of bringing craftsmen near the battle areas but when it was spoken like that, it made total sense that they should do this.

  “Understood my Lord, I will get to arranging all the demons into four man squads.” Valring said.

  “Tell them that only the smartest demons will rank up. I want smart commanders and not just strong but stupid ones.” Akor said.

  “Of course my Lord.” Valring bowed.

  Then Akor looked at Idre and Everrath, “So how many people does the church already have?” He asked.

  “Only enough to run the temples in the main settlements. We are still needing more priests to write out the holy text so that priests can be sent to the chapels in each village where they are being made.” Everrath said.

  “As for clergymen, we only have around 40 men, they are only the first batch, only after they all learn the basic skills can I send them to other villages to protect the chapels and recruit more clergymen.” Idre said.

  “Master, our biggest defect is our population.” Adok said.

  "Indeed, we lack a lot in population, especially in Tier 2 demons which are smarter and stronger than common ones.” Akor said before thinking of something, "I remember that Everrath and Morrath both ranked up because of some divine power right?” He asked the two.

  “We have.” Everrath said.

  "Is it possible to do this continuously?” He asked.

  "In the case of the time we gained it, we needed sufficient sacrifice for Edite.” She said.

  Akor frowned and pondered deeply, “What is the sacrifice for the religion?” He asked.

  “Our gods are of good nature, they do not accept sacrifices like evil demon gods which wish for blood sacrifices. They desire effort to their domain, scholars might be able to obtain the blessing of Pyarus or Utia, both of which are intelligence gods but of different branches.” She said.

  Akor nodded and suddenly thought of something, he pulled up the minion window and then filtered
the minions to only show scholars and then pressed the tab for level. Surprisingly there were five scholar minions that were level 10 because their class gained experience from doing scholarly work such as research, writing or copying books and teaching.

  “Call these five. Is the process of obtaining divine power at the altar or church?” He asked.

  “Altar, Master.” Everrath said.

  “Then call them to the altar.” Akor said.

  That said he didn’t stop there, he removed the filter and made sure to check all level 10 minions within Sanity. He actually found a quite a few guards, almost 10, who were level 10 already and an even greater number between levels 7-9.

  “The guards really leveled up during the previous war to build the temple.” Akor said. “Call these guards as well. They will also be transferred to the army as long as they are smart.” Akor ordered.

  Getting up, they all walked out while Adok went to get the scholars and send a messenger to the guard’s barracks.

  At the altar Akor crossed his arms and waited. The scholars were the first to arrive. Three minogida and two imps while the guards came after, 7 imps and 3 minogida of the warrior class, all of them cavalry.

  “You have all done well to reach level 10.” Akor said and explained to them what they would be doing.

  The eyes of the 15 demons shone excitedly at the thought of going up a rank. It would mean they were a stronger higher grade demon and could command lower ranked ones with true authority from their very blood.

  They were able to maintain their calm emotions in front of Akor who turned to Everrath and nodded.

  She nodded and turned to the others, “Walk to the top of the altar.” She said.