“Message board warfare entertained and appalled players in equal measure. Simple text posts of intent were crossed with videos and complicated AI trolling. Propaganda and advertising filled the feeds. Thankfully, Singularity provided excellent filters to cut away everything except what each individual player considered relevant.”

  From “Forum Fighting – Messaging in the late 21st Century”

  Year 1, Month 2, Day 9, 07:00

  Torgon walked around the war wagons. They looked more like a small castle on wheels than anything. The driver up front had a protected enclosure with space behind to change with three other drivers. Two automatons with crossbows sat above the driving enclosure to fire ahead. Two automatons manned the rear of the wagon. Each side carried two automatons at the corners of the passenger compartment. The wagon had a second level containing eight automatons with excellent fields of fire.

  Ten players could ride in relative comfort inside the wagon. They entered through a hatch in the rear and had benches in the middle to sit. There were openings along the walls to allow weapons to be fired. The space would be a bit cramped for bows and crossbows, but magical attacks would go through with ease. A short ladder and a hatch allowed players to climb onto the top deck and fight from there as well.

  The wheels of the wagon were wide and created for offroad use. The mana engine required mana crystals to function. Creating a single basic mana crystal required 10 shards. Each crystal would power the war wagon for an hour. Thankfully, the undead dropped them frequently and the guild had a stockpile.

  Torgon looked to Ashford, the newly promoted head of the vehicles division of the war weapons department and asked, “Do you have a crew picked out for them?”

  Ashford nodded, “The first five crews are ready to go although we only have the 2 wagons so far. Priority is for mages with area of effect spells, then everybody else. They’ve vulnerable to close range action, but they are faster than the current crop of players on foot.”

  “Outstanding!” Torgon exclaimed. “We’re heading out soon to connect the roads with Digger. Once those are good to go you can start using these to transport blocks to the fortresses and farm undead. Let the crews get used to running them.”

  “I’ll talk with Mark and Steve,” he replied. “They can sort out a group to help them if we get in trouble and keep eyes on any of our foes that want to ambush them.”

  Torgon left the crafting hall to go meet up with his shortened party from the day before. Alpha Flame and his father were both out of game and in transit to a Singularity facility to get placed into pods. Digger joined their party in his place and the five of them led a group of nearly 200 players to the front of the ongoing road construction.

  Digger gestured ahead of the group, “The area to build the first fortress is ahead. The other two crews are finishing up connecting all the starter towns. When we finish this stretch of road, you’ll have to get people here with those heavy building blocks of wood and stone.”

  They settled in placing the stones on the road. Kate wandered off to help the scouts. Torgon focused on putting each block into place and boosting his construction skill. After spending half an hour on the repetitive task, their minds were free to wander and consider the future.

  Torgon sent word back to the guild hall to get the two war wagons loaded up and have them head from Miller’s Crossing to where they were going to build the first fortress. The scouts watching the encampment around the Temple of Unclad Bone detailed the increasing layers of defenses in place. The road grew closer to completion.

  An hour into their efforts, a notification from the system appeared.

  “Congratulations! You have completed the Uncommon Guild Quest: We’re in This Together. Every guild member will receive 2,000 Free Experience and 200 Guild Contribution Points.”

  Digger said, “The rest of our road builders are spreading out to the different connecting roads to fortress sites. Keep at it, we have another hour of building until we can start on the fortress.”

  The war wagons arrived and began slow patrols around the area while the last few blocks of stone were laid in place. The moment the road connected, the fortress construction options opened. It showed 0/1000 stone construction units and 0/1000 wood construction units. The people inside the war wagons unloaded their blocks and allowed Torgon and the rest of his party to turn them in for construction and fortification experience.

  The grounds for the fortress were open and ready to accept the building blocks. The accommodations inside the future building were made to accept a permanent garrison of around 200 soldiers. Walls, a defensive ditch, and simple barracks needed construction to finish off each of the forts.

  Torgon said, “Digger, pick out your best builders. I would like to funnel the blocks through them to get their skills up.”

  He saluted, “Yes sir! I have a core group of a dozen others that like the building and digging as much as I do.”

  Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

  Torgon, Hyperia and Dusty rode back to the guild base atop one of the war wagons. Torgon spent part of the journey with his eyes closed, enjoying the sensation of the wind whipping through his hair as they traveled. The top level of the wagon provided an excellent viewing platform for the scenery around them. The wagons themselves were another tangible indication of the guild’s progress.

  Back at the base, Torgon turned to Hyperia and said, “Alright, it’s time for us to call out the Raiders, the One Percenters and SPQR. I’ll put the post up, but I want you to look over my shoulder and make sure it’s the proper level of inflammatory.”

  Dusty squeezed in close, “I want to help with this.”

  Torgon navigated to the forum section for news in the Kingdom of Thorn tied to their slice of starter zones and the Broken Hills. He looked over the post titles and smirked at the number of complaints about the groups they were targeting. Torgon opened the create and put in the title, “Operation Visigoth – Giving the jerks what they deserve”

  He kept typing, “Dear adventurers in the Broken Hills. Risk of Injury is proud to announce an operation for the 14th of this month to free the Temple of Unclad Bone from the unjust occupation by SPQR, The Red Hat Raiders and the One Percenters. We believe that every player should have access to every dungeon. No more elitist asshats trying to keep you away just to please their corporate overlords. Come on out and watch the fireworks and the ultimate fall of the Leastern Roman Empire.”

  Hyperia shook her head disapprovingly as she looked at Torgon. “What?” he asked.

  She sighed deeply, “Torg, I don’t know how to say this gently, so I’ll just say it. Your puns are terrible. Throw out the entire section about the Roman Empire. Nobody cares except you and maybe like four other people who are all deep into retirement.” Dusty giggled as Hyperia kept going, “It should have more dignity and gravitas. We’re serious people.”

  Torgon rolled his eyes, “Fine. Let me try again.”

  They workshopped for several more minutes until Hyperia and Dusty were satisfied.

  “Operation Visigoth – Freedom and Growth for All

  Risky of Injury is proud to announce that on the 14th of this month they will be liberating the Temple of Unclad Bone. All free players of NEMO are welcome to watch or participate. No group shall be permitted to deny general access to dungeons in the Kingdom of Thorn. Join Risk of Injury as we lead from the front in creating a better gaming world.”

  Torgon sighed, “Ok Hype, I will admit that it’s a lot better than my version. Send out an alert to the guild and then I’ll post it.”

  She warned everyone in the field about the potential grenade being thrown and Torgon set the post to go live in 15 minutes. They took the opportunity to grab some food from the kitchen and carried it to the park to eat. They ate in silence for a few minutes enjoying the view of the fountain.

  Hyperia spoke, “Captain Cook and Alpha Flame will be back on the 12th. It will take time to catch them up.”

  Torgon agreed, “I think Captain Cook can work with Frare and Mark on the trading and manufacturing side of things. He enjoys it. I’m not too sure about Alpha Flame though.”

  Dusty shrugged, “Put him in a rotation with all the different groups. We can see what he’s best at and he can find out what he likes. He has potential. I’m both surprised and happy that he’s not just an entitled prick.”

  Hyperia’s eyes glazed over as she read reports, “The enemy has seen our post. Our scouts are reporting that it’s like a kicked over anthill near the dungeon. They’re trying to beef up the defenses and they have patrols stretching out farther.”

  Torgon grinned evilly, “Good, let them worry about what will happen. I have some ideas to make their lives as stressful as possible.”

  “Oh?” Hyperia inquired. “Do tell.”

  Torgon held up three fingers, “It’s a three-part strategy. The first part is to keep the undead farming groups together but shade them nearer to the Temple. They’ll wonder if it’s the launch of an attack whenever they are close. They might sortie out to attack which will give Ovarrix a lot of fun.”

  “The second stage will be organizing large groups and having them plow through the Broken Hills from Miller’s Crossing to escort people transporting blocks. I want those fortresses built so we can tackle the central ruin. We need capital access. Those armies will be threatening but also tempting targets. It would be excellent training if they caught fights.”

  “Finally, the third part of the strategy is to group fast reaction pvp forces to hunt down any stragglers from their groups. I want to strangle them slowly and keep them in place behind the walls. We have the initiative with their forces being tied down to defend against our planned attack. It’s time we trained for fighting other players in a serious manner.”

  Hyperia thought about the plans before speaking, “It can’t interfere with our progression. I don’t want to slow down our advances.”

  “It shouldn’t,” Dusty said. “The groups can kill and train and earn experience while hunting. They won’t be lying in ambush wasting time.”

  Torgon stood up, “I’ll be crafting for the rest of the day. We’re going to need all the consumables and war weapons we can get our hands on. I also have to raise four freaking skills to level 10 before I can free up a universal slot.” They laughed and they each headed off to their tasks.

  Torgon sat in his favorite crafting room once more. He took out the materials for a bow and ran through the numbers to make one now. His base crafting skill was at level 2, plus weapon crafting at level 13, craft bows at level 5 and craft enchanted weapons at level 8. The crafting hall added 2 levels to each skill and the specialist crafting hall added another 2 levels. The gauntlets of creation provided a bonus of 8 levels while his attributes provided 9 levels of boost to three of the skills and 6 levels of boost to the craft enchanted weapons skill. His blueprint was at level 24.

  His chance of success to craft a single level 10 uncommon bow stood at 147%. Nearly half of the bows he made would upgrade to the rare quality. The boost from the gauntlets meant that 1% of his crafts would achieve the next rank. Each attempt to create a bow now took a little over 33 and a half minutes.

  He began putting the pieces together for each bow. He had time to kill and weapons to craft. Torgon knew that it would be time to seek out higher level blueprints soon. He hoped that the raid in the ruins of the Forgotten Empire would provide the opportunity to find some. He was level 14 and near level 15, and many of his guildmates were solidly in the early 10’s.

  Luck was with Torgon and the 7th bow he crafted adjusted to Epic Quality. He swapped his bow for the new one and tossed the rare bow into the guild bank. He spent a dozen hours just making weapons for the guild until a communication crossed his view.

  Ovarrix sent in a message, “Torg, we have a situation. I need you and the rest of the leadership team as soon as you’re free.”