A group of players were looking at a gaping black entrance into an underground. The walls were all covered in black volcanic stone. The narrow entry tunnel quickly opened into a massive cavity. It was a hideout that Vesuvius dug out for his faction.
'It is bare now, but I will distribute missions to players to make it look like a base.'
He had already prepared and dug out this hideout beforehand, as the draconic instincts refused to allow players to enter his lair for fear of stealing his precious treasure. He had already thought about packing his hoard into a bag of holding. However, he felt like it would hamper him in a fight if he had to focus on protecting his bag and being careful about not losing it.
"Minions, this will be where you will make your base... At least until we remove that pathetic baron from power and take his castle for ourselves."
Then he released his premade faction mission.
// New faction mission activated:
Objective: Help with the construction of the faction base
Quest items: Iron Dragon Mask; Black Mantle
Reward: 1-2000XP (based on contribution); 1-1000 silver coins (based on contribution); 1-100 contribution points
//
Vesuvius used his time while waiting for players to escape and added the mechanic of contribution points through the faction subsystem. Currently, their only usage was to help him track how much players contributed to his faction, to judge who deserved promotion.
'At least, the super intelligent system can easily and objectively judge abstract stuff like contribution during construction work...'
The players immediately started to discuss between themself how to design their base. They had mages between them, so tasks like shaping stones and wood would be easy for them.
'This should also make the feeling of them belonging to faction stronger as they will build their own base with their own hand.'
As someone who was a player before, Vesuvius still knew that such work would be boring for some players, so he immediately distributed another task.
"The hunters are advancing into the mountains, trying to locate my lair. They are moving slowly as they are moving without knowing their location. Also, they carry lots of heavy equipment so you should be able to catch them easily. However, they are too strong for you. So I want you to go and kill these of your kind that joined them. Show me a map!"
The fat dwarf immediately spread an old-looking map on the ground. Then a glowing blue hand appeared out of nowhere, its finger pointing at the spot on the map.
"They are currently here! So split and finish both of these tasks!"
// New faction mission activated:
Objective: Hunt an enemy players
Quest items: Iron Dragon Mask; Black Mantle
Reward: 100 XP per kill; 1 gold per kill; 10 contribution points per kill
//
The players quickly split into two groups. One of them consisted of Booba's party, the freak in red and four more players. They wanted to go out and hunt players. The other was the group led by the guy with a punk haircut and his lackeys. They decided to stay and start construction of their base.
As he prepared to leave, one of the players suddenly spoke at him, "Hey, your draconic Highness, how have you even got into this area... It is mostly filled with much weaker monsters."
All of the players suddenly quiet down, springing their ears, ready to hear a new piece of his lore.
Vesuvius froze for a few moments realising that even he himself had no idea how his egg got here, 'I was definitely brought down here by thy river, but what is up the river deeper in the mountains?' He had no memories of that place from his player life, as it was too troublesome for beginners to travel through the mountains. As it was considered a beginner area, no high-level players ever bothered to explore it... or maybe that player just kept their findings for themself.
'I should definitely find a time to explore it when the situation stabilises.'
"Ehmm? Your Highness, are you alright?" voice brought him out of his thought as he looked at the group of players still looking at him.
"I don't know... I just hatched out of the egg brought here by the water. I never met my parent or saw my original home." There was no need for him to lie, as he felt that his mysterious origin would just make him more interesting as an NPC.
"Let's go, let's burn our enemies!" the pyromaniac in red ran out of the cave in a great mood. Vesuvius nodded internally at it, 'Maybe I could change him into a dragonkin soon. He is either hardcore roleplaying as a fire mage or is not right in his head. In both of these cases, he should be trustable. If he is a roleplayer, he will not break out of his role to spread my secrets between players. And if he is a maniac, he will likely not be interested in a information trading.'
"Slow down! We don't want to split. We will have higher chances to succeed if we stay together!" Lili and other players ran behind him. However, he didn't listen and continued running.
The dragon himself walked out of the tunnel, spread his wings and launched towards the sky. He flapped his wings, quickly flying in the direction of the hunters.
'I need to keep eyes on them to make sure that they will not rob my lair.'