Dom, Andrew and Kai had soon met up after Lunch and headed back to their Dorm room. There unnecessary beating from Alice still raw on some of their minds. As they entered the Dorm, they first sat down down in the seating area. Kai went and poured them all some fresh apple juice, whilst Andrew opened up his phone and sat in the middle of the sofa.
"So, I suspect that I am based around here." Andrew stated, pointing at a point on the map of World Conquest Online. He pointed north on the eastern coast of where Dom's Riverside was located, in a normal world he would be around two thousand miles, but due to the world of World Conquest Online being so much bigger, he was actually closer to twenty thousand miles away.
"I think I am based around here." Dom said, pointing at the coast slightly north of where he thought Riverside would be.
"That is a long way to go." Andrew replied, "I'll build the guild up as I travel south, hopefully gathering more and more players and NPC's as I travel down. Seeing that you are near the coast, and the fastest way to travel will be via ship, I'll try and set up the guild as a sea faring one for now."
"That's a really good idea." Dom commented, "If you can do that, I won't need to heavily concentrate on a Navy."
"I still would, we can just have the guild become part of that." Andrew disagreed, "Hopefully by the time I have travelled the twentyish thousand miles, you'll have a small kingdom growing. I think the biggest issue for me right now is going to be funds, I need to find an income to attract players and NPC's to join."
"I have found a small treasure trove." Dom quietly whispered to Andrew whilst Kai was still getting their drinks. "If I can find a way to send you any, I will."
"Thanks Dom," Andrew replied, "I'm not sure how trade between players works yet, but I'm sure more and more features will become available over the coming weeks."
Kai soon joined them, passing them a glass each, which they both took with gratitude.
"What new features?" Kai asked, only hearing the end of the conversation.
"I was saying, that there will hopefully be new features in the coming weeks." Andrew said, "We were talking about trading items, but hopefully some other things happen."
"My brother has an 'In' with some people high up and has mentioned that after the first couple of weeks there will be some new features." Kai replied, "He didn't mention many, as he only knows a little, but he said something about battle scenarios, auctions and leader boards."
"How is your brothers Town coming along?" Dom asked, after taking a sip of his drink.
"Really well." Kai replied, "We are from a family of food and trade backgrounds, so he has set up that as his priority of growth. Hopefully we can help them once you have the guild up and running."
"Of course!" Dom replied seriously, "Your family is our family. Do you know where abouts you have spawned?"
Andrew showed Kai the map, with only Andrews location marked on it still. Kai looked at it for a second and pointed at a location a bit more inland and about halfway down between Andrew and Dom.
"If you head to this location." Andrew said, pointing at the coast halfway between Himself and Dom. "I aim to travel down via the sea and meet up with Dom who is more south than me."
"I can do that!" Kai replied, "I decided to be a merchant and should be able to do that if I can get with the right caravans. Hopefully I can build up some currency through trade on the way."
"I think we both have around ten thousand miles to travel to reach up here." Andrew said seriously.
"That is a long way." Kai lamented, "With a trade caravan doing around twenty five miles a day, that would be nearly four hundred days."
"So about one hundred real days if we just travelled." Andrew commented.
"It would be faster if you could get to this river here." Dom commented, pointing at the map that Andrew had up, "If you can get a boat near this river, you could do it about four times faster I believe."
Andrew and Kai agreed, and the plan was set for their travel and routes. They both had individual plans along the way, but they could communicate when they logged out and keep tracking each others progress. They both also agreed that there may be other ways of fast travel available as the game developed, so they could always hope for that.
They all said good bye and decided to head to their rooms to log back in for a few hours, before having an evening meal together and then playing through the night.
Dom sat on his bed, placing the headset back on, before the light went dark again. He opened his eyes, and he was once again in the blank room, wearing his armour and toga. Opposite him was Game Support, sat on her chair reading an ancient looking book.
"Welcome back Lazarus." She said, looking up from her book with a smile.
"Reading anything good?" He enquired.
"Just something that Hua Tou from your Riverside wrote, before giving it to a guard before his death in history. The Guard's wife persuaded him it was dangerous to keep and they burnt it. Idiots." She lamented, "Are you ready to play?"
"Yes please!" He replied.
Suddenly the white light faded and he awoke in his bed in the Town Centre. The sun outside his window had risen, and he could hear the sound of people walking around. He got up from his bed and put on his toga, before strapping his sword at his waist. He left his armour in his room as he felt safe walking around Riverside with the number of soldiers he had gathered.
As he headed downstairs, he was welcomed by some new faces that were cooking in the kitchen. They smiled and bowed their heads in welcoming, before continuing with their cooking. He then looked towards the corner where the Sabre Tooth Tiger Cubs were, noting that Hua Tou was sat with them with his daughter again.
"Good morning Senior Hua Tou!" Dom said kindly.
"Good Morning Lord Lazarus." Hua Tou replied, "Our Cubs are starting to get playful, I think it will be time to rehome them soon."
"I agree." Dom agreed, looking at the Cubs that had grown quite a lot in the short time they had been in Riverside. "I'll ask Mayor Lucius to have this added to his priority list."
"I'm sure he'll be grateful for an additional task." Hua Tou laughed as Dom bid farewell and left the Town Centre, walking in to the light of the outside.
The first thing he noticed as he left the Town Centre was that their was a Hoplite stood at each side of the entrance. He recognised them as Gregorios, who he happened to spend a lot of time with, and Trojan who had joined him on the bear excursion.
"Why are you both stood here?" Dom asked, confused.
"We are your personal guards." Gregorios grinned. "Commander Subutai has said that your safety is the most important thing and you should have a personal guard."
"So he decided it should be you?" Dom replied with a laugh.
"Of course, who else can protect you more than the mighty Gregorios!" Gregorios replied.
"And you Trojan?" Dom asked.
"He said that whilst Gregorios would be a good protector, he needed someone to keep Gregorios from making a fool of himself, so that's my job." Trojan smiled.
"So where to boss?" Gregorios asked.
Dom just shook his head, but understood why Subutai had done this. They were growing quickly and didn't currently have enough systems in place if their was an ambush or attack from an outside force.
"I'd like to meet up with Lucius first." Dom commented, "I have some tasks that we need to complete together."
"I'll send a runner." Trojan said, "He will be at the farmlands and it saves you having to walk there."
Dom didn't mind this, and laughed as he saw it the was the burly Duncan, on guard duty supporting the villagers moving wood from the Silver Forest Lumber Camp to the Housing District, that was grabbed again. Duncan just smiled in acceptance of his fate and headed of towards the farmlands in the east.
Dom took a seat on the stone benches and looked up to the sky, looking at the small amount of clouds that were moving in the sky. He only planned to stay until night fall, before logging off for a short period of time for some food. After that he would log back in and play through as usual.
"Good Afternoon Lord." Dom heard Lucius say as he appeared. "Welcome back."
"Thanks Lucius!" Dom replied, "How did the morning spawns go?"
"We have more Warriors and more Villagers." Lucius replied with a smile, "Subutai has taken the majority of the new Warriors across with Gan Ning and Alexander to the underwater city you found. Octavian and some of his Legionaries are working with Wang Shu's family to plan some road routes. We also had a family of Miners join us, who are being escorted by some Warriors to the mountain base, they are going to look at finding a location to set up a Stone Mine, but we need the schematics before we can build it."
"That's great Lucius." Dom commented with a grin, "You are the perfect Mayor."
"For now." Lucius replied seriously, "I'm hoping you have called me here to use your mission rewards?"
"I am!" Dom said, "Let's use the Black Cube first, before we get our Elite Villager. Then we can head down and get your new colleague!"
"I like how you leave the one I'm most excited about until last!" Lucius lamented.
"Game Support, please use the Black Cube." Dom commanded.
[Using Black Cube....Spawning Villagers]
The doors to the Town Centre opened and 4 men walked out, they were all tall, wearing leather armour and equipped with cheap swords. One of the men had a red cloak, whilst others wore brown ones.
"Good afternoon Lord." The red caped man bowed. "My name is Crixus, we are former bandits who are looking for a fresh start with our lives. We are happy to join any military unit you have or work as guards or even farmers to have a fresh life."