“Players in NEMO were surprised to discover that the starting zone was essentially an extended tutorial. Players could travel between starting zones but were unable to leave them until the initial siege quests completed. For most, this happened after four sixdays in game or four real life days. The best zones finished in three.”

  Excerpt from “In the Beginning, A NEMO Retrospective” by Clare Nachsicht

  Year 1, Month 1, Day 18, 08:00

  After the party wound down, Torgon made his way to the crafting hall and spent the night gathering stone blocks to help with the rebuilding of Miller’s Crossing. He took the opportunity to sleep a couple of hours and cleared his mounting mental fatigue. Waking up refreshed, he made his rounds of the base, seeing people hard at work and heavy portal traffic to and from Miller’s Crossing. He tabbed Frare to visit the Deep Harbor auction today. He gave him access to the available guild funds and handed him the five passes. One pass was meant for Frare to use to shop for guild needs and the other four had been sold to other guild leaders around the city for 20 gold coins each.

  Access to the new zone would start on the 19th and Torgon was eager to organize hunts of more powerful monsters. He spread the word for an officer’s meeting of the guild to plot their next moves. The end of the siege marked the end of the beginning of their time in this world. They held the meeting inside the park and opened it to all members. Crude wooden benches were added in case there were a lot of attendees, but Torgon expected most players to be busy pursuing their personal goals today.

  Around fifty people, most of them spectators, had gathered for the meeting. Dr. Masters started things off. “The biggest news I have is that we’re getting more permanent residents. We’re adding over 200 more children and their relatives. They’ll arrive in game on the morning of the 25th. Overall, it’s nearly 500 new players to add to the guild. They’ll be permanently online like our original team.”

  Torgon nodded, “Hear that folks? That’s the sound of all of us crafting our butts off.” Several people in the crowd chuckled, others looked thoughtful. “We have enough basic gear and if things go smoothly in the next week there will be more enchanted gear to give them a leg up with starting. Players from Miller’s Crossing are going to be venturing into the Broken Hills zone. It’s tagged levels 5 to 15.”

  Dirk stood up and addressed everyone next, “I’ll be out of game the next sixday as will about thirty of our regular players. We’re being inducted into the next wave of permanent players as guides. We’ll return on the 25th with all the newbies.” Dirk received a lot of handshakes and congratulations. They knew he wanted to become a resident after seeing how well Torgon and the others took to it.

  “The dungeon seed is still in Miller’s Crossing,” Ovarrix added. “Tomorrow, I want to take our team in to see if we can permanently end the threat. We need to learn more about the Forgotten Empire. The undead that animated all the zombies must be related to it. Our scout teams can start pioneering the Broken Hills while we clean up that little mess.”

  Dusty interjected, “From the research I’ve done so far, there are at least three different dungeons in the Broken Hills. There’s also a raid style dungeon for a party of 20 players with a base level of 10. We’ll need to find them and see what sort of first clear rewards we can get. The other starting zones in the kingdom will be dealing with their sieges and that should give us a big head start.”

  “What I’m hearing is dungeons, dungeons and more dungeons,” Allestor laughed. “I’ll be a lot busier once the new players get here. I’ve found that I love training the little rascals to beat people up. It’s easy to underestimate them because they’re small but they are just as strong with the stat system. I need, physically and spiritually need, to see how this fancy new sword performs in combat.”

  Digger spoke hesitantly, “Do you think the dungeons will have cores better than the basic one?”

  Dusty pondered the question, her eyes scrunching. “Anything with a base level of 10 might drop a core that’s common. I think it’s a mix until level 20 though. It seems like every 20 recommended levels for a dungeon raises the floor on drops and the 10th level midpoint raises the ceiling.”

  Digger looked to Torgon, “Those of us more focused on crafting and gathering want to improve the guild base. We’ve talked about it and we’re going to cross train on running dungeons.”

  “A better guild base would help my people.” Elder Chestnut floated up, using magic instead of his wings. “Growing our Faerie Tree would let my people have more room and entice other faeries to join us.”

  “The Faerie Tree is our top priority after raising the level of the Guild Keep.” Torgon looked both Digger and Elder Chestnut in the eyes, acknowledging their point. “Crafting is our key to staying ahead and the Faerie Tree is our biggest advantage. It’s just that until we start looting Common grade cores, all those moves are in the distant future. Any basic cores we find are going to be reserved for expanding the crafting hall. We can construct a total of 10 floors at the current tier. Plus, with the new players, they’ll have houses that will need to be built and upgraded.”

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  “It won’t be feasible to upgrade their houses unless they can get the cores themselves. It’s just too many.” Hyperia shook her head then continued, “Even at taking 10 basic cores to be the equivalent of a common grade core it’s far more efficient to do the guild buildings over the individual houses. The only reason we have the current player houses upgraded is due to the event rewards that were locked to the individual participants.”

  Dusty’s eyes lit up, “I can scour the books for more events. The other starting zones should finish their sieges then. If we send the newer players to those cities to repair the damage that might work. We don’t know what exactly happens if any of the starter cities fail their event either.”

  “It’s riskier than it sounds. We know the Young Masters Alliance controls the other cities. Our old friends from the Red Hat Raiders are out there and they’re a part of that cesspit.” Torgon looked pointedly at Allestor. “When their sieges lift it will be at minimum an undeclared war between their group and ours. They outnumber us better than 50 to 1 and with their backing any advantages we have will come purely from our levels and skills.”

  Hyperia spoke confidently, “The level 10 breakpoint will give us breathing room. Even with it taking us twice as much experience, we’re outleveling the general player population. That’s not even considering that we’ll have twice the experience at the same visible level, so they won’t know just how strong our resident players are.”

  “I have a plan,” Allestor grinned. “It’s an alliance, not a marriage. When the fighting starts, we’ll just focus on smaller and weaker groups to strip them away. Divided they’ll fall and all that. If they’re as arrogant and annoying as it sounds like from their stupid name, we can go with blue ball,” Hyperia coughed and tilted her head towards Digger and Curious Kate. Allestor looked a little sheepish before rephrasing, “I mean blue protocols.”

  “What are blue protocols?” Dr. Masters asked.

  Torgon explained, “We’ll fight them, but we won’t say anything. We’ll run away from fights we can’t win, and we’ll kill them when we have the opportunity. We won’t acknowledge that there is a conflict and pretend like it isn’t a thing. Groups run by bullies and narcissists need the feedback and we’ll deny it to them. It throws them off their game.”

  “I am a psychologist, I can understand the principle,” Dr. Masters said wryly. “Does that work?”

  Ovarrix raised his hands in a so-so gesture. “It does if you can make them struggle. The hardest part is usually getting everyone to stay quiet; too many people want to crow about successes or moan about losses.”

  “Would an assassination squad help?” All eyes turned to Curious Kate who beamed with enthusiasm.

  “Oh yeah, I take it you’re interested?” Allestor asked.

  Kate vigorously nodded her head in the affirmative. “I want to focus on being sneaky, scouty, shooty and stabby.”

  “We are going to get along so well,” Allestor spoke reverently.

  Torgon shook his head in amusement and spoke, “Allestor has the skills, Ovarrix has the tactics, Hyperia can handle the strategy, Dusty is working on intelligence. That just leaves me to manage the logistics. The auction house opening will create loads of possibilities. We need more gold, and we need more of everything. After the base raid on the 20th, I want us to dump all the old ballistae on the auction house. They’ll be in high demand. Will we have enough of the newer models being made?”

  Mark spoke in his proper British accent, “We will. We’ll have enough of the basic field mana cannons to keep the defense up even if it takes a while to get the level 10 players needed to operate the improved siege weapons. Ashford and I are spending nearly all our time making them. It wouldn’t hurt to find a few more blueprints and spread the load out though. I do realize that they’re incredibly rare, but it’s horribly inefficient to give the rare blueprints to just a few people.”

  “Duly noted,” Torgon responded. “Yet another reason to upgrade the Faerie Tree. The double crafting speed buff is too good to have it limited to only two people.” He turned to Chef Bridges and asked, “Anything you need?”

  “If we’re getting that many more kids, I’ll need more helpers and another lead chef. I also want you to find some way to get me a magical cooking space. I want more excitement in the kitchens.”

  Dr. Masters responded first, “There is another chef coming on board with the next batch, Chef Daniels, I believe you know her?” Chef Bridges nodded and looked very satisfied.

  Ovarrix added another point, “The guild needs to recruit more actively in the other starter zones. I will take it upon myself to help organize everyone into dungeon, raiding and pvp units. I’ll lead different groups in the fields for mob farming and train them in defending against pvp attacks. I think we all agree that the best way to prevent harassment is overwhelming violence.”

  Torgon stood to address everyone, “There you have it. The next several sixdays are going to be even busier than our first three. We’re leaving the safety and comfort of the starter zone behind and soon we’ll have to deal with hostile armies trying to take what’s ours. We’re not going to allow that to happen. Our primary goal is the same as it was when we first logged in. We’re going to ensure that this world is a place where the children in our care and anyone else who wishes can grow and enjoy life.”

  “We’re going to finish off the seed, start hitting new dungeons and raids, pioneer a new zone, fend off hostile attackers and prepare an entirely new crop of players for life in the New Era of Man Online.”

  The crowd sat in silence for moment, soaking in the enormity of the tasks before them. Grins started to spread as they realized that they were out in front and if they kept working hard, they would stay that way.

  “We’re up to the task boss.” Ovarrix saluted. “We’ll see what those jerks in the Young Master’s Alliance try to pull and then we’ll cut them off at the knees.”

  Allestor nodded his head sagely and tested the edge on his new shiny sword. “I can’t wait.”