Rosario sat in his room that night contemplating the information he had found out from both Brodie and Donnie. From what they had told him he currently did not have to worry about the Vampires following the two groups. They had been traveling for over a week and the Vampires had never actually pursued them. Just in case they had Rosario had made sure his people were on guard, a night watch was now organized for the growing population on the plateau.
Brodie was Scottish as Rosario had thought, the man had explained that he had been set down in the crater also, but he had been on the complete opposite side of the crater then Rosario. He had set his summoning gate on the first day and had gotten to work building his village. Everything was going well until about a month ago he was visited by a group of vampires. They had at first seemed friendly and they had begun trading with his village.
As the days passed the Vampires visiting to trade brought more and more "Protection" with them. They claimed these men and women protecting them were because the path in between their villages was riddled with dangers. Brodie had passed it off as nothing at first, but eventually he started noticing that the guards for the merchant vampires were starting to take an unusual interest in their fortifications.
He found out a couple days later that someone had let slip to the Vampires that his people had actually found a gold mine right outside town, it was one of the merchants that the Vampires were dealing with when they came around. Things seemed to escalate exponentially from there, the Vampires sent a delegation basically demanding shares of the gold mine. When Brodie had refused and rebuked them for their aggressiveness in their approach they left, but not without leaving some ominous words behind.
Not a day later Brodie got a report that everyone who had gone to the gold mine that day had disappeared. No one knew where they had gone, it literally looked like the just were teleported away. They had a massive search and it turned up nothing the miners were essentially gone. Brodie decided not to send workers to the mines and instead have his people begin focusing on level themselves faster. He figured if they were at a high enough level quickly then there shouldn't be as many threats. He also began sending his scouts towards the way the Vampires had come from.
A week later his scouts reported they had found the Vampires and there were a few hundred people in the Vampires settlement. Roads led out of it and there was a wooden palisade that looked like it was being replaced by a stone and mortar wall as the scouts observed. They were unable to determine if everyone in the settlement was Vampires, but there definitely looked to be a hierarchy. From the look of the well-traveled road that exited the town and headed off into the woods the scouts came to the assumption this was not the only town that the Vampires had, this was purely speculation, but it was better to assume there was another town than not.
It was while these scouts had been observing the Vampire town that out of the open gates began marching a massive column of soldiers. The soldiers were on a direct path for Brodies village. Delivering the news only hours before the soldiers would get there, Brodie decided to abandon the town then have his people face off against five hundred soldiers. Unfortunately, they did not escape fast enough as the Vanguard reached them before they could leave.
Brodie and his villagers had fought like mad men but in the end only the few that had arrived at Rosarios doorstep had been able to break through the enemies' lines and escape. Many villagers had even chosen not to help fight as they argued that possibly the vampires were there only for Brodie as he was a Lord, and the villagers are a resource and useful. As Brodie had mentioned this part Rosario could practically feel the mans anger radiating off of him, unfortunately Rosario somewhat agreed.
They as Collective Nobles were the one thing keeping someone else from fulling claiming territory. Tormund had explained it as when you place your summoning gate down technically a certain amount of territory surrounding it becomes yours. Others will be notified when you enter your territory and the only way for anyone to conquer the territory is to kill the Lord, make them a vassal, or use the current Lords blood with a new Lords blood to change ownership of the gate.
When Rosario asked why he hadn't seen any of this before Tormund explained that he had to first build enough to have a legit recognized town by the Collective. Once his town was recognized by the system Rosario would be given an administrative screen and be able to manage his towns and cities from there. Until then it was assumed the territory was his, and the rules of taking him down still applied, but it was not acknowledged by the system.
After Brodie had told his story Rosario had listened to Donnie's account of what happened at his village. It almost mirrored Brodies with the Vampires seeking to trade with Donnie's village. Apparently he had a coal mine just outside his village, the vampires traded with him fairly at first, but they asked a lot of questions about the coal mine. Donnie hadn't liked how interested they were and had the Vampires followed back to their home. His scouts had found the Vampire settlement and had decided to split and follow the roads. After a few days of scouting, they found that it was an alliance of five Vampires, and they were using humans and other species as thralls to do their menial work while the Vampires sat back and enjoyed benefiting from the labor.
Not but three days after receiving these reports Donnie received a new report of the Vampires scout his small village along with the coal mine. Making a hard decision he decided to abandon his town and move his people elsewhere. Before he left he used his remaining thirty-seven summoning vellums as he knew he probably would have a chance to use them again. Unfortunately, just like with Brodie a group of villagers decided staying in the village was their best bet as the Vampires hadn't shown their hostility yet.
Rosario had asked Donnie if he had any idea of the Vampires had actually taken his village or not. Donnie had replied that two days after leaving he received a notification along with a quest. It basically said his quest was to retake his captured summoning gate from the Vampires, the reward would be he would be restored as a Noble in the collective.
When Rosario had asked why Donnie's group was so small when they got here if he had summoned a whole group before leaving it would seem like more should have come. Donnie agreed that more had left the village with him, but they had run into a band of Orcs and had to fight tooth and nail to win. Thankfully he had summoned five earth mages in his last group summon and they had leveled a little in the flight from the village. These five were able to use their magic to turn the tide and their group had killed the Orcs. Unfortunately, it cost them quite a few people. Donnie had said they had buried their dead and kept on moving away from the Vampires until he saw the smoke and moved towards it hoping to make allies.
After hearing both of their accounts Rosario realized he had an almost impossible task ahead of him in defeating the Vampires. He was almost one hundred percent certain that one day their two sides would come to blows. Before Donnie had retired for the night Rosario had asked him to point out the five earth mages, it wasn't their class as there were no classes, but its what they were called as it was their primary element they were able to use.
Rosario had an idea for building, and he was giddy with anticipation on asking the earth mages if it would be possible.