I blasted the attacker with torture lightning as I rolled out of the way. She ducked out the way, but it was a seeking spell. She whimpered and dropped to her knees as she held her hands out. "Sorry! Sorry! I'm not great at aiming, yet. Don't kill me?" I recognized that voice. Delfina? What was Delfina doing here? "Thank you for not killing me, Master." She got up from her crouch when she was sure I wouldn't attack her again. She shivered, shaking the armor loudly. "Damn, that hurts. Master, I'm a player now. I can't be a governor and player at the same time. The forest is trying to reclaim Tannalgath. I've got the undead chopping down trees as fast as they can, but the forest can't be held back forever."
Damn. I'd forgotten about my little town. It needed a governor to keep the forest back, but the only npc I'd left alive had been in the process of becoming a player. I needed a new governor. Now. I turned around and headed back into the hut I'd landed in. The four orcs were still cowering. "Swear fealty to me." They stammered out the words hurriedly. I taught each of them to shift their species. "Shift to Dark Elves." They obeyed, shrinking and warping as their red skin became black as pitch. I pointed to the oldest-looking male. "I pronounce you governor of…" what was it called? Tan…something. I glanced at Delfina. "Tannalgath." That's what it was. He screamed for a second and dropped to his knees. I turned back to Delfina. She was grinning at me. I taught her the rest of the classes I knew and she stared at me like I'd suddenly become a god. She didn't even wince. I tossed her a guild token. "Take them back to the town. Make sure it advances like normal." I checked through the skills I'd started at Tannalgath. None were under level fifty except the armorer skill. "Make sure they keep crafting." None were level one hundred, yet. I was sure they would get there, though.
"If I may, it would be helpful if they could enchant things. We mine and gather up the materials required for enchanting, but they can't learn the skill." I nodded as I turned away and mentally commanded her to return to Tannalgath. She grabbed the four former orcs and started leaping back. Her leaps were small, barely more than she could cover in a day of walking. Too bad vassals and familiars couldn't mimic my skills like pets. Delfina had definitely been busy, though. She'd become my familiar at level twenty. Now she was level eighty. I didn't have time for this, though. I needed to get on with the taking of Valley. Then again…how had Jennifer's guild known to wait for me in front of the keep? How had they known anything about me? Shyndyn was one thing, but the players weren't Oracles that could see the future. I would have noticed if one of them had that cursor and made sure to enslave them. That sort of power would be a waste to kill.
"How'd you know to wait for me?" Jennifer didn't seem to enjoy my attention the way Delfina did. Or she was trying to keep a secret. "How'd you know?"
"Forums. Apparently you were never a social butterfly. War World Online had an amazing chat system set up. You could even set up a world chat. That's how we knew you were coming. Players are terrified of you, and they've been whining all over the forums about it. I heard that they've started uniting against you. One beta tester, supposedly, started with even more money than you, and owns all of the human cities. By the time you finish with the orcs, the guild will own the whole central continent. You're doomed. Not quite as doomed as my last guild, but doomed. We're all doomed. The dwarves and goblins both have a ruler, and they've made an alliance. Nobody is welcome underground except for them. They've got armies set up at every cave entrance across the world. There was a lot of money floating around when the beta testers realized they still had their cash. Strangely enough, this continent alone lacks any organized defense force designed to fight you off. Nothing over a city level, anyway." That could be a problem. There were more cities on the central continent than this one. Lots more. Add the subterranean cities to that…if they all united I'd be wiped out. Unless they were all npc based empires. They couldn't build an army as fast as I could subject monsters to my will. I needed a lot more pets. They'd get my skills to the max and I'd go into battle with a million buffs. It was the best case scenario. If the other empires realized just how powerful pets were…I'd lose my edge. Did I even have an edge? Did Ryne talk to the other three emperors like she did me? What about the fairies and outcast orcs? The elves couldn't get their crown because I owned Melasia, but the outcast goblins, humans, and dwarves would all have crown gear at a discounted price.
I needed to move faster. "I need you guys to start taking towns. Nobody can control a teleporter in my continent but me. Not all of the towns will have them, but better safe than sorry. They won't have as much power in them so you should be fine to take them on your own, and you can find them at the bank." I pulled out the leap spell I used. It glowed golden on my palm. How could I give it to them? How could I let them control it? Lethe could mimic it, but Hell wasn't very good at that sort of thing. I turned to the two remaining skeletons. They could do whatever I could. "You two are going to be their horses. Take them wherever they want, using variations of this ability." They nodded. I turned and rushed for the keep. I needed to move faster. I rushed to the battlefield, still covered with the corpses of Jennifer's old guild. I loosed one of the raising spells I was constantly building into the mass. The skeletons that rose were all level one eighty five. I taught them the melee classes and ordered them to slaughter one in two males and one in three females and bring the rest of the population of the city to me. Along with the corpses of the fallen. "What happened to all the players that weren't in your guild?"
"They bolted. Most were level twenty or under, so we managed to get them clear before the players in Talnyr warned us that you were coming." So there were no players to report what happened to Valley. Good. I rushed through the gates of the keep, blowing the wooden doors to splinters. A hundred soldiers guarding the Chief were waiting for me.
"Swear fealty to me." The chief shook his head, a sad expression on his face. He was about to speak when a bolt of red lightning turned his words into wordless shrieks of agony. I amplified the spell into an area one and let it loose. The guards dropped to their hands and knees before assuming the fetal position. I stomped on one guard's head and watched it explode in a fountain of blood and gray matter. I used an air spell to make sure the Chief was watching. I stomped on the next guard's backbone, ripping through until my boot hit the ground. He swore fealty to me. "All of you. Swear!" they obeyed. I raised the two skeletons I'd just made. They ended up level two hundred. Being a mage that could dedicate my entire mana pool to every spell I cast really was a ridiculous boost in power.
And I felt myself hit level one hundred. It was like the red lightning spell Ryne used on me. I was stronger now, though. I resisted the urge to curl up like a baby. I walked out without showing any of the pain of learning that many new runes. Level one hundred was significant for every class. I turned to Jennifer, who was looking at me like I'd grown horns. "You weren't joking about the torture, were you?"
"I don't joke. One of the reasons I'm not a social butterfly. Your job is to make sure the city runs smooth. Build paved roads to the neighboring cities, make sure you're collecting all the resources needed. I expect the tax paid to Zezhria to match what Melasia, Foothills, and Talnyr pay. In gold and goods. If you talk to the bank people, they should let you know what's required and what's needing your attention. Have fun." I turned and headed for the bank. I needed to make a sub-guild. One that could belong to the same guild, but not actually be one. One that my guild members could let players join.
My landing cracked the stone steps of the bank. I didn't care. My boots didn't even notice the loss of durability. I marched through the doors and turned to the guild office. This was a fat, bored, male orc. "Can I help you, Emperor?"
"I need to establish a sub-guild for my guild. The Black Hole Knights." Maybe it wasn't possible. Could I own two guilds at the same time? I doubted it.
"And how would you like for it to be set up?" I almost sighed in relief. It would work out. I could set up a system to cull out the weak. "And how would you like to allow entrance?"
"Entrance only requires a spoken agreement between me or any of my Black Hole Knights to allow them to join the sub-guild, the Knights of the Black Hole. Anyone with my sigil in their cursor can accept players into the lower sub-guild called the Denizens of the Black Hole. There are ten commander positions for every Black Hole Knight in the Knights of the Black Hole. Each of those commanders have ten thousand warrior slots and have the ability to change a Knight of the Black Hole into a Denizen of the Black Hole and vice versa. All vassals of anyone in any tier of the guild belong to me. Their pets belong to them, but I get all vassals. All property owned by anyone in the guild belongs to the guild. Which in turn belongs to me." How much would that level of complexity cost me? I was guessing somewhere in the ten million range. Oh, I'd forgotten how they could get out. "Leaving the guild or either sub-guild is impossible without me personally expelling them from the guild." The ability to track guild members was crucial.
"Thank you. Is there anything else?" what? No cost. No mention of money at all? Was this really a bank? I shook my head. "Have a nice day."
I stopped off to buy the rest of the real estate in Valley and give them taxes and quotas to fill before I turned for the exit. I paused at the door before I left, checking to make sure I'd remembered everything. I was pretty sure I had. I nodded and walked out of the great doors.
Jennifer rushed into me as soon as I walked out of the bank. I couldn't see her face behind her helmet, but her blubbering meant she was crying. Crying hard. "How could you make me a commander like that? And give me ten slots for lower commanders? I hardly even know what that means! I don't know what to do with any of that! I'm not a ruler, or a leader, or in charge of anything! Ever! I don't know how to run a city or a guild! I'm in middle school!" so was I, but you don't achieve perfection by hiding behind your inexperience.
I glanced around until I saw my skeletons circling a mass of people. They'd made a wall of the corpses. Right in front of the keep. "Don't worry about it. You don't need to fill any of those slots. Make all of the players that come begging into Denizens of the Black Hole, if you want. I don't really care. It's an option to use if you want to, or need to, not a necessity." Maybe she needed a bit more. "Relax. If you do a bad job I'll demote you. That's it. There are enough skeletons here that I'm not worried about losing Valley." She stared at me as I built my leap. I was finished with courtesy. I wasn't going to land outside of the city and walk to the keep like a gentleman. I had enemies at the fringes of my civilization. I would destroy all that stood in my path. "Anyone, npc or player, try to enter this city without belonging to the Black Hole Knights, kill them. And warn them that I'll be watching the forums. No more rumors. I'm giving them the ability to respawn and work as a part of the greatest world machine ever conceived. I will rule this world like no human could ever rule ours. I'll do it walking over the corpses of a billion resistance fighters or parading through a crowd of empowered allies, I don't care which."
I leapt to the keep. I stepped inside and glanced at my stats. So I didn't need to be in my home keep to get the thousand times bonus. Any keep I owned was enough. Good. I released a raising spell at the whole crowd. Amplified by a thousand, it raised the millions of zombies to level two hundred. And I'd used a new raising rune that built a stronger type of undead. It was like the difference between broken and common items. I'd only made broken zombies before. Now they were common. The only difference in their look was that they were emaciated instead of rotting, but the difference in stats was much more apparent. The chatter of the npcs angry whispers calmed to nothing.
"All of you have two choices. Die or swear fealty to me within the next ten seconds." I raised all ten of my fingers and pulled one down per second. The npcs didn't waste any time in swearing fealty to me. They'd seen what I'd just made. And it actually had been as offhand as I made it look. I'd built that raising spell on the fly. The powers I got from being in the keep were amazing. Instant spell construction combined with mana regeneration a thousand times normal was a devastating combination, further amplifying that with a thousand times the effect…I was a terrifying being. "Good. Now I expect you all to make this city one of the strongest fortresses in the known world. I want the walls of Capitol to look flimsy compared to the weakest of my walls. I want the armies of the central continent to quake in fear at the mention of our forces. I want human nations to quake in their boots at the rumor of our raiding parties! Capitol, Alstaria, Pellon, Darvok, Negdeven, all of their strongest cities will fear you! The traitors in Delta will be exterminated! Now get to work." Maybe they just thought it was what I wanted, but I thought there were some that genuinely felt it as the whole crowd roared and screamed in exultation.
And with that I leapt for Mountain. The leap was amplified, so it felt like it only took a few seconds before I landed at the steps of that keep. My craters were getting bigger with every city. Wonderful. I didn't even need to find the Chief, he was standing at the gate, an appalled look on his face. "You're supposed to be dead." I laughed at my good luck this time. Even if he owned the keep, he wasn't inside it. I grabbed him by the throat and lifted his huge frame off the ground with that hand. I had to fly a bit so I wasn't reaching as high as I could just to touch his throat, but I still felt like it was an intimidating pose. He barely weighed anything. If I hadn't known better, I'd have thought he was made of Styrofoam. He stuttered for a few seconds as I stared at him. If he expected me to be dead, he knew what I wanted. He stuttered for a few more seconds. Then I started tightening my grip. He cocked his head like he was listening to something, and then went limp. He stopped stuttering and fighting and spoke the words. Good. "Please, don't kill as many people as you did in Valley." I grinned as my sigil lit up the sky.
I wouldn't. I'd kill more. Mountain was a bigger city. Thus, a larger population. Npcs were better in the long term, but I was facing a war right now and undead were really easy. "Muster the garrison right outside the door. And call for all the citizens as well. They should see this." The governor wilted, knowing what was to come. Somehow. He didn't have a governor-only forum, did he? I felt the mental order he gave. It was not the same as me ordering my pets, it was more of a mass notification. Town meeting in front of the keep. The order was sent to the garrison, but that was more of a request. Npcs really couldn't control each other the way I could control them. I hadn't tried using the crown, though. Maybe that would be the same.
I sat down just inside the keep and started building the spells I'd need as I waited for the population of Mountain to muster. "The players have fled the cities, hoping to avoid your wrath. They have abandoned us to you. It's the same across the whole continent." Well, that made things easier. Npcs didn't have the will to resist me. And I couldn't make players into vassals. I waited on the floor for two days for all of the npcs to gather. It was a much longer process when they came willingly. But I had way more magic in store than I'd need for a dozen cities. And I was still building more in the back of my mind. My staff was invaluable for no more reason than it could sustain so much magic. I didn't think I'd used it to cast the basic bolt spell or even to bash in a single head yet, despite the amazing lethality it had as a weapon in and of itself. I stepped out into the red light of my sigil to see all of the npcs cowering before me. The soldiers were better at hiding it, but I could feel their fear. It was so thick in the air I thought I'd be able to taste it.
I released summon gates around the crowd, making sure they couldn't go anywhere. Ten foot demons stepped through, glaring at the populace with hateful eyes. Next I activated a modified version of the Field of Hands spell I'd used to stop the Crusaders of Jennifer's guild. Instead of hands, skeletal blades ripped through the earth, impaling every soldier. The civilians started screaming and crying at the open brutality of the spell. I raised the corpses immediately. Since I was still in the keep, the spell was amplified to an outrageous degree. Every single one of the hundreds of thousands of soldiers became a level two hundred common zombie. "I assume you know your options!" it was very convenient that they communicated as they did. The npcs showed that they did indeed know what was required of them. They bowed and I felt them all enter my service. The only cities I owned that weren't full of vassals and pets were Zezhria and Talnyr. They didn't have any vassals, now that I thought about it. I'd have to fix that later. I issued a blanket order to the vassals. "All of my cities are off limits for non-Black-Hole-Knights. Any npc or player that attempts to enter without being or becoming a member will be an enemy of my empire, and as such will be eliminated immediately. All children born will be sworn into the guild within an hour of their reaching adulthood, or they too shall be eliminated. My sigil shines only upon the worthy! Also, all that die are to be brought to the temple for revival. After funeral services have been completed." They'd start to stink after a while, but that wasn't an issue I was too worried about. I could travel between my cities very quickly. Weekly raising sessions should be fine. If not, I could figure out a way to implement embalming.
I didn't have any vassals in Zezhria. I couldn't give my pets a blanket order to kill anybody that didn't belong to me in any of my cities yet. Not unless I wanted to kill every single Dark Elf in Zezhria. That was home, I would be nicer there than everywhere else. My demons dissipated, but I noticed a few of my vassals killing the npcs next to them, horror on their faces. So they thought they could slip through the cracks. Fools. Living outside wasn't that hard. Pastures would give them plenty of time to level up before they had to face the more dangerous world. Living outside was fine, but what was mine was mine. I turned from the killing field to the bank to finish buying Mountain.
The process continued as I took Dalynr, River, and Ocean. Hill was a bit different. Since it was the capital of the orc race, the Chief there owned the keep and he knew it. He would have been max level for an npc at launch, but that was hardly a threat on its own anymore. His burgundy skin was wrinkled, but his hair was still a dark Mohawk untouched by white or gray. "You dare challenge me? You are an ant before a true king!"
Wrong. I wasn't taking any chances. None at all. I unleashed all of the magic I'd been building for the months it had taken to conquer the other cities. I destroyed half of the massive city that coated an entire mountain, but the excessively powerful Chief died in the ruins. His successor was much more helpful. I wasn't sure rubble could be a keep, but my sigil over the city said otherwise.
When I reached Pynr, though, Shyndyn was waiting for me. She was wearing her host this time, but I could tell it was her. The Oracle cursor hadn't filled in when I added the other classes. "We agreed that Talnyr would be different. The vassals I made for you turned on their brethren. Now all of Talnyr is full of corpses and slaves. Why? And why are they defiling the temple by stacking all the dead there?" whoops. I forgot I told her to keep some vassals in the city. Well, I wouldn't change my orders though.
I shrugged. Things hadn't gone as planned. "I expected to be able to take the world before organized resistance started. I wasn't counting on the players' ability to communicate despite the distance. The whole central continent is aligned against me. The underground is united, but I'm not sure if they'll attack or just defend. I'm guessing, hoping, that they remain where they are. Regardless of what they do, I need the strongest army possible to hold off the central continent. Their power is greater than mine. I'm working on changing that, but it will take time. Who knows how fast their empire could spread across to this continent? I don't have time to be benevolent."
She shivered as she took a deep breath and released it slowly. Her head was encased in a bulb of scintillating light as she took several more deep breaths. It dissipated and she looked at me with her usual expression. "Relax. Diplomacy may change in a day, but ships take time to build. Not even players can swim across the ocean." Couldn't we? I cocked my head. We didn't need to breathe. There was a bit of feedback associated with learning not to, but it wasn't necessary. What was stopping us from swimming across the ocean? What was stopping us from walking across the ocean? "There are hundreds of uber-monsters in the depths that don't bother with targets as large as a ship, but will consume anything smaller. There are others that will consume a ship if it is too big or if a fleet of smaller ships gets too big, so there is a limit to how many you can transport across the oceans. Haven't you noticed that no fishing goes on more than a mile from the coast?" I'd been a bit busy. She shook her head. "How can I aid you?" She wasn't mad about Talnyr? Now that I thought about it, her question hadn't been angry. She'd been curious. Maybe familiars were even more…mine than vassals. Was it physically impossible for them to feel rage directed at me? That would be extremely convenient.
"Find and take the towns. Make sure every town flies my sigil and trains for my war. I want the armies coming from the central continent to find themselves facing a legion of indescribable power. And make sure all of the vassals are getting trained in stamina magic by my skeletons." That was a good idea, but I doubted they'd get very far. The central empire was probably doing the same thing with players instead of pets. When they did start a war, it would be devastating to both sides. I held no illusions that I would conquer them easily. Maybe I wouldn't even win. I needed a trump card. Even if they didn't know pets were as devastating a weapon as they were, they'd learn quick. There were enough Necromancers aligned with the other empires to build armies to match mine before I overran them. I needed a trump card. Something they couldn't replicate quickly. I needed true npc armies to surpass my pets. Or something bigger and better in every way.
I put that out of my mind. I needed to finish with the continent before I thought about taking the next step. I needed more power before I started thinking of enslaving a dragon. And not a baby one, like Jennifer had killed. A real one. Uber-monsters were the key to true world domination.
Before I knew it, I was back in Zezhria on my way north. I landed on the steps of the bank and considered moving on. I couldn't, though. I needed Zezhria to be mine as much as all the other cities. More so. I sent out a pulse spell that echoed through the whole city. Anyone within the walls would have heard it. And they started gathering. I didn't even need to ask them to swear fealty. They swore as soon as they saw me. Even the soldiers. I stared around at the npcs, each one grinning at me as their eyes conveyed a sense of worship. These people weren't afraid of me. They saw what I was doing as a massive step up from what their previous masters had done. I looked up at the black skull and noticed the black steel crown. It contrasted sharply with the dull color of the bone despite both being black. Zezhria was my capital, and they knew it. And loved me for it. Now that I thought of it, I hadn't needed to pay for the city since I took Melasia. That made sense. I didn't need to pay to keep the cities I conquered, I just needed to have overwhelming force to keep them in line. Of course loyalty would work the same way.
Then the players started arriving. The npcs left as they saw the players meet me at the wall of my keep. "Let us join your guild!" one player shouted. I almost burst out laughing. They were just like the npcs. Zezhria was made for me. I granted them all access to the Denizens of the Black Hole. Every single one accepted my invitation. They didn't even know that the npcs would hunt them if they didn't, like future Denizens would.
I actually did laugh with relief as I finally accepted the fact that I'd gained the fealty of every single character in Zezhria without spilling any blood. I taught all of my Dark Elf vassals stealth. They were born to be assassins. I taught them to shift species as well, just to make assassination even more effective and easy. Once I'd started, though, I didn't want to stop. I taught them abilities until even the soldiers nearby were on their knees. Ubers were a good trump card, but Dark Elves needed to be the backbone. The core of my power.