[Home Base name: _|]
It’s prompting me to name our new base. What else can it be but that?
[Whale Base]
Looking around, there’s not much here. Just a cottage in the woods by a river, tucked in beneath a giant tree. At my direction, the system crisscrosses the ground with a faintly glowing grid, indicating the boundaries of our property. It runs along the river, about two hundred and fifty feet long and about one hundred feet across. Not a large area, but not a small one either. There are options for expanding the property, but this hardly seems necessary with only two guild members.
Then, shall we start upgrading Whale Base with defenses?
[Fortification, level 1
Adds a moat around your base to deter invaders.
Cost, 6 gp]
“Hey, Sherbie. How much gold you got?”
My friend stops playing with his bear cub to pull up his system. “Let’s see. 9 gold, 27 silver, 15 copper.”
I check my own.
“Between us we have 14 gold and 80 silver. That’s not a lot. Upgrades to the base cost money, so we’ll have to budget very carefully, and only invest in what’s absolutely necessary right now.”
“Stable,” says Sherbie without hesitation. “I need a stable to keep my animal companions.”
Right. Not what I’d consider a necessity, but the bulk of the money is his, and Sherbie’s need for a stable is what brought us here in the first place.
[Stable, level 1
Adds a stable with twenty stalls for keeping guild pets and mounts.
Cost, 5 gp, 20 sp]
Yikes. Almost as much as the moat. Let’s see, what else can we build?
Besides fortifications and basic improvements to the house and land, we can set up a variety of buildings and stalls. In alphabetical order, they are: alchemist’s shop, apothecary, armory, auction house, bakery, bank, barber shop, barracks, bath house, cartographer, chapel, fence, fletcher’s hut, gallows, garrison, gazebo, guild hall, herbalist’s shop, hospital, inn, jail, jeweler, leather worker, library, locksmith, market stalls, philosopher’s garden, residence, scribe’s hut, shrine, smithy, stockades, stonemason, tailor’s shop, tinker’s workshop, warehouse, water wheel, well and wizard’s tower. According to this, the buildings already present on the property are (1) residence, water wheel and wizard’s tower.
The residence, I understand, and the water wheel attached to it. But the wizard’s tower? I look around in confusion. There’s nothing resembling a wizard’s tower in this area. Unless of course, they mean…the tree on top of the cottage?
Maybe we should have looked around a bit more before deciding on this spot for our home guild…
Guess I should go check it out. But first—
“Sherbie, give me all your money.”
“Right,” he says, not even hesitating to trade it over to me for nothing.
[Would you like to build Stable level 1?]
“Yes.”
I see the outline of a large building. The game lets me place it anywhere I like within the property. I choose a spot close to the main house, away from the river, and set it down. In an instant, the building materializes with a small sparkle of fireworks, and Sherbie’s mouth falls open in disbelief.
“There,” I say, satisfied with the layout. “Your stable.”
“Rev!” I can barely understand him through the tears. “BLLRHYOURSUCHAGREATGUYBLLUUU.”
“Sure,” I say, patting his head reluctantly as he clings to me. “Why don’t you go check it out, yeah?”
“YOUREMYBESTFRIENDILLNEVERFORGETTHISBLRRR!”
“While you’re doing that, I’m going to just have a look inside the cottage.”
Yeesh. What an emotional guy. Makes me uncomfortable, all this crying. Was I ever like that before? I can’t even remember, now. God, I hope I wasn’t like that…
I make my way inside the cottage, curious but also wary. It’s dark inside, and bare, with just a few countertops and hooks in the wall for adornment. The windows are covered with thick tattered curtains, and I push one aside to let a little light in. The floor is dusty and littered with leaves. But not undisturbed. Here, a footprint. A trail in the dust, someone going from the front door to…
The trail stops at the end of the room, just before a blank wall. I blink at it, confused, press it some, but it’s solid, carved out of the very tree itself. How peculiar.
Then I look up—notice the outline of a hatchway, and a worn leather handle. I reach up to grip it, and pull it down. It opens with a creak, and a murky light filters into the room from above. A ladder unfolds and descends mechanically. I take hold of it, now fairly bursting with curiosity, and haul myself up.
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The wizard’s tower, I realize with wonder. All around me are signs of it, bookshelves lining the circular tower walls, crowded with dusty tomes, skulls, vials empty and full with suspicious glowing liquid…
Up I climb, higher and higher. It seems to go on forever. Then, over head, a ceiling with another hatch. I open it, and the ladder takes me right through it, till at last I’m standing once more on solid floor in a strange branching room.
It’s all carved right into the tree, I realize with awe. Even the branches have been hollowed somehow, turned into passageways. This is the kind of build that could only be possible inside a fantasy game.
Here and there, more splotches of colored light illuminate the room. Following one branch, walking along more bookcases stuffed with rolled up spell scrolls, I come to a stained glass window with the motif of a blooming rose. A latch on it allows me to open it up and offers a breathtaking view of the forest from above, and of the mountains beyond.
“Who are you?”
A voice from behind causes me to nearly lose my balance and topple out of the window, but I somehow manage to catch myself and turn around.
In front of me I see a sinister figure dressed in dark robes. He wears his hood low, shading a pale face and short cropped black beard. His presence strikes me at once as cold and unsettling.
“I asked you a question,” he prompts me impatiently. “Who—are—you?”
“I-I’m Revelator. Leader of The Whales. I just made this place our home base. And who might you be, my good sir?”
He sneers at my question. “So you’re the new landlord, eh?” he looks me up and down with an unfavorable eye, then turns from me dismissively. “I’ll thank you to stay out of my tower, unless you’ve a good reason for being here.”
“Your tower?” I follow after him.
“You heard me,” he snaps. “I’ve lived here for three hundred years and I’m not about to move out just because some cheese-drinking, wormy-eyed, pube-faced—”
“Oi.”
“—sniveling, pajama-wearing, butter-balled ass sniffer comes around and starts acting like he owns the place.”
“I do own the place!”
The wizard turns and gives me a sneer of utter contempt that makes me feel about two feet tall.
“Look,” I say, holding up my hands. “I think we got off on the wrong foot, here. I haven’t come to kick anyone out. I was just curious about what you do up here. I imagine we’ll be working closely together in the future, so I just thought it would be nice if we—”
“I’m not nice,” he cuts me off simply.
“Right. I’m sort of picking up on that. Do you have a name?”
“Bax.”
“Bax. Great. And your job is—”
“I’m a wizard!” he gestures impatiently, his sleeves flapping around. “What do you think?”
“May I see your wares?”
“No!”
“Will you enchant my gear?”
“No!”
“Why not?!”
“Because I hate you! If you weren’t my landlord I would have already turned a thousand spiders loose in your underpants for daring to trespass here!”
“What the heck?!”
“Get out of my tower!” Bax shrieks, and he starts to shove me towards the ladder.
Calm down, Rev. This is probably a case of needing to earn reputation with the guy before he’ll deal with you. I’d like to ask him what would make him happy, but he’s got me backed up to the edge of the hole, and if I’m not careful, I’ll fall right through.
“Just tell me what you need, Bax. I’ll fetch you anything, buy you anything. Tell me what I need to do to get on your good side!”
“You want to get on my good side?” The middle-aged looking man gets his face right up in mine so I can see his unsettling yellow eyes just before he launches an eldritch arrow straight into my gut, sending me toppling through the hole.
[-70 HP]
“Stay the hell away from me!”
“Yaaaaa!”
OOOF!
[-315 HP]
I lay on the floor, momentarily stunned, staring up at the open hatch high overhead. Faintly, I can almost imagine I see the wizard’s self-satisfied face just before he slams the hatch shut.
“What the hell?!”
“Rev?” The front door opens, admitting a worried looking Sherbie. “Are you alright? I thought I heard a scream.”
“I’m fine,” I say, somehow managing to come back to my feet. “You see this ladder?” I say, gesturing to it.
“Yeah?”
“Forget it exists,” I advise, and I haul it up, collapsing it and thrusting it above the ceiling before pulling the hatch down and sealing it tightly.
“What’s up there?” he says, eying the hatch anxiously.
“A troll.”
“For real?”
“For real,” I say, and once more I pull up the system screen. I access the cottage itself and it prompts me to redecorate the residence. Since it’s only twenty silver, I accept. Suddenly, the dreary space is bright and cheery. The floor is clean, the windows clear, and cozy cottage furniture and décor fills every corner of the room.
“Oooh,” Sherbie claps his hands delightedly, like a kid watching a magic trick.
“This is our house,” I say stubbornly, loud enough so that hopefully that jerk Bax can hear. “No one is going to stop us from living here if we so choose. And if the upstairs neighbors get too rowdy, we’ll throw them out!”
Do I imagine it? Or is that the faintest sound of mocking laughter I hear?
Whatever. I make a rude gesture at the ceiling before stomping out of the house. Sherbie follows after, tripping a little over his own robes.
Right. Where were we?
We have 9 gp and 40 sp left. I pull up the list of guild improvements I can make.
“Sherbie, are you alright with me spending the money on our guild as I see fit?”
“Totally,” he assures me. “I wouldn’t know where to begin. Besides, you already got me a stable—that’s all I need.”
“Right, so—
[Fortification, level 1
Adds a moat around your base to deter invaders.
Cost, 6 gp]
[Would you like to implement Fortification level 1?]
“Yes.”
Suddenly the river is transformed amidst a small display of fireworks, much to Sherbie’s delight, branching out to encircle our base with a deep, swift running moat. Without swimming it, there is only one entrance to the base—the bridge, already flanked by two guard posts. They stand empty, I realize with dismay.
[Would you like to hire base guards (Pikemen) for a fee of 10 sp/day?]
Guess I have no choice…
[If you want to hire Pikemen, you must first build Barracks.]
Tell me that first, then!
[Barracks, level 1
Adds living quarters for the guards.
Maximum occupancy: 20
Cost, 3 gp]
These guys are seriously going to bleed us dry! But I don’t see any alternative, since we need to keep our base secure. Frankly, I still wish we could have spent our entire budget on defense, but I guess it’s too late to worry about that now.
[Would you like to build Barracks level 1?]
Yes.
I place the building near the bridge, and Sherbie claps happily to see it. He doesn’t care what the building is for, he’s just enjoying seeing our base being built up, a little at a time.
[How many Pikemen would you like to hire?]
Forty silver left. And who knows when I’ll be getting more? I need to hurry up and sell all this crap in my inventory, I think as I make my selection for now.
Two guards to watch the bridge; I can afford to keep them hired for two days. That will have to be enough for the time being. Then, as soon as I get to the next town, I’ll find a merchant and clean out my inventory so I can afford to keep the base safe from invaders.
It’s too bad I can’t just summon Yock the way I did in the tunnels, I think with a wistful sigh. Then I straighten, recalling a certain detail unexpectedly.
Wait a minute. What was that message about Yock I got just before I left that dungeon again…?
