Town Builder - 59 - Inspiring Decisions (Patreon)

Chapter 59: Inspiring Decisions

The red-robed priestess wore a smile that irritated me.  I checked on the three new quests I had just received.

Revive the Sullen God, Part 1, build a place of worship for the Sullen God

Revive the Sullen God, Part 2, accumulate 100 followers for the Sullen God

Revive the Sullen God, Part 3, find the first key to the shackles of the Sullen God

The color of the text indicated all these quests were epic, but no rewards were listed. 

There were three quests, but the third looked like just the first step in a chain quest.  Mad Dog had said it was a long chain quest.  I tried to open a chat and share the quest info with Mad Dog but was met with a prompt.

You are trying to share an individual quest that cannot be shared.

I opened the text with Mad Dog and asked him about individual quests.  He was also confused and said we should talk when I returned to Malcum.  I looked back at the red-robed priestess and shook my head.  It was obvious why the Matriarch AI wanted me to accept this mission.  She wanted me to design and build a place of worship for the Sullen God.  Why did she want me to free the god, though? A question I would ask later. 

I moved past the grinning priestess and entered the portal stone area of effect. Yorric followed, and I paid the sum of coin to get to the dwarven city on the continent and then another larger sum to reach Dragon’s Tooth. The sum from Dragon’s Tooth to Crystalhelm was massive.  Almost a quarter of the remaining gold I had left from selling the dungeon loot.  A skyship would have been cheaper.

The fee to Malcum was cheap, but I noted the human Empire had placed a 30% tax on travel to Malcum above the normal fee.  I had traveled almost 22,000 miles in a matter of ten minutes.  That was almost the circumference of the Earth. I appeared on the portal stone in Malcum and looked around. Everything looked the same in the direction of the inn.  I turned and noted a number of new residential buildings had been constructed toward the park. 

I let Yorric bring the horses to the stables to be cared for by the elven sisters and made my way toward my manor.  Citizens recognized me as I made haste to see Jaesmin and waved and congratulated me.  I rushed through the manor and found Jaesmin, Black Beauty, Mira, and Galana in my bedroom.

Jaesmin was holding a child that looked to be about one year old, and I was confused.  Black Beauty answered my confusion, “There was no actual birth.  The child just appeared about an hour ago, and Jaesmin said she would age quickly like other NPC children.”

The admins had said something like that to me.  I asked, “How fast will my daughter age?” I was looking at Jaesmin. 

She smiled, “About a year for every month until age 18, and then it will slow.  She is already one year old on her creation.”  So I did the math…she would age 12 times faster in the game. 

“What is her name Jaesmin?”  I said, taking my daughter in my arms.  Smells familiar to me hit my senses.  Her beautiful blue eyes stared into mine with a depth that seemed to radiate intelligence.  The babe’s smile showed her joy and happiness at seeing me.  I had cared for babies before, and the smell of new life and…I handed back the child as it had clearly soiled its diaper.  Once again, I wondered why the devs added this aspect for NPCs.

Jaesmin’s eyes met mine. “I was thinking of the name Joy.” That sounded powerful, and I nodded. I wondered how much the Matriarch AI played in choosing the name.  I remained with the woman and took joy in Joy for hours before leaving.  I met up with Mad Dog and Grinder at the inn, and they congratulated me.

“Tallis,” Mad Dog started, “The admins have released some obscure references to your new child in the game. Some people are putting the pieces together.”

“I cannot control them, Mad Dog.  It is what it is.  I will protect her.” I inhaled deeply and showed him my screens with the quests for the Sullen God.  “This is my other problem.”

Mad Dog and Grinder looked, and Mad Dog went contemplative.  “If there are other solo quests out there of this nature, I have not heard of them, but it makes sense.  What concerns me is that I know of a few instances of other testers going to Thira and activating the mask, but they never posted about receiving this particular chain quest.”

Grinder interjected, “Maybe it has to do with his class?  You need to have a specific class to activate this path of the quest?”

Mad Dog’s eyes widened.  “Brilliant Grinder!  Yeah, several quest paths are class and profession-dependent.  Usually, it just helps narrow the reward for the quest to something usable for the player.  Maybe you got this quest path because you are already a lord, or maybe because you are an architect.”

“What about me being named an acolyte of the Sullen God?  Does that mean anything?”  I asked.

Grinder shrugged unconcerned, “That just has to do with your faith rating.  They go: follower, acolyte, priest, head priest, and high priest.  Each rank gives you some minor power from your chosen god and access to faith-related quests.”

Mad Dog added, “That is what everyone has surmised on the forums.  No one has yet collected enough faith points to reach head priest rank.  At least no one has posted about it.”

I sat silently and finally asked, “Do you think I made a mistake?”

Mad Dog laughed, “Mistake?  Tallis, it is just a game, and you just joined a faction.  There are ways to disassociate yourself from that faction.  I wouldn’t worry about it, though.  Since your quests have no rewards listed, you can complete the quest and see what it offers.  How well you complete the quest will determine the value of the reward.  Since these are epic quests, the rewards should have a large variance.  That is not unusual.  Being an epic series of quests, the rewards must be good, mate.” He patted my back reassuringly and avoided setting off the town attack notification for once.

“So, you think I should draft building plans for a temple or something?  I think I can draft and build something like the Temple of Athena in a day or two,”  I suggested.

Grinder and Mad Dog looked at each other, and Mad Dog spoke, “The testing period ends in four days, Tallis.  We will be gone after that.  You will be on your own until the game officially launches.”

Grinder added, “The in-game social chat rooms will be active, Tallis.  You should find another hard-wired player to work with when they go live. Safety in numbers and all.”

Mad Dog looked at Grinder with some irritation, “Tallis, that may be risky.  Most likely, other hard-wired players will exceed your level and could take all this from you.”  He gestured broadly.  “We were going to suggest caution just before we left,” he looked at Grinder, who shrugged unabashed. “In approaching other hard-wired players.  The other members of our guild have been trying to locate hard-wired players that we think you can approach.”

Grinder scoffed, “But they are like you, Tallis, and cannot communicate outside the game.  Danielle Burke is the only one we found that might be a match.”  Mad Dog waved so that Grinder could continue, “Danielle was the sole survivor of a supersonic plane crash.  Her family bought her way into the testing.  The court cases for the plane crash have not been resolved yet, but once her family gets the settlement, she might be able to get a new body.”

Mad Dog interrupted, “We haven’t been able to locate where Danielle has settled in the game.  Or what her personality is.”

Grinder interrupted Mad Dog, “We agreed her social media made her seem like a good person.”

Mad Dog waved his hand dismissively, “After what she went through, you don’t know how she has changed.  Tragedy does that to people.  It changes them, Tallis.  She also had no experience with VR games before being hard-wired in.  That was one of the reasons why I was holding back on disclosing her.  But Grinder is right; she is the best person we have found for you.  When the game goes live, we hope you can communicate with us, and then we can find your allies on the forums.”

“Harry thinks he found the city she is operating near,” Grinder offered.

Mad Dog shook his head, “Tallis doesn’t have time to go search.  It would take him two or three days to reach there and another few days to track her down.  And that is if the forums Harry is looking at are correctly linking Danielle to her location.”

“Do you know her in-game name?  And where is the location Harry thinks she is?”  I asked, interested.

Mad Dog took over the conversation with a sigh, “Don’t be disappointed if things do not pan out, Tallis.  She chose the nickname her father called her, Danny.  We think she is trying to build a settlement on the border of the Midnight Desolation Lands.  The city she is near is Azure Waste.” 

The name tickled something in my mind.  I went into my messages and found out my garrison of angelics, giantkin, and dusk elves came from a fortification bordering the Midnight Desolation Lands. I pointed out the coincidence to them.

Mad Dog seemed skeptical there was a connection, “The Midnight Desolation Lands are vast, Tallis.  They are the starting area for players who choose to start as a Shade or Undead subrace.  The Azure Waste is a city that is accessible by a skyship from Dragon’s Tooth. It is a two-day trip.”  I nodded, but Mad Dog didn’t have maps to share with me. “Level 100 maps surround the Azure Waste.  It is quite dangerous.”

“So, you think I shouldn’t try to recruit or ally with Danny?”  I asked, seeking advice.

“It is up to you.  She is definitely over level 100, much more powerful than you,” Mad Dog said with a final warning. 

We discussed Malcum’s growth and what his group could do to help before their characters were removed from the game. It was going to be bittersweet when the moment arrived.

I went into my manor and sat in my massive drafting room.  This room was bigger than my entire old residence.  Framed plans dotted the walls instead of pictures. Fresh flowers refreshed by the wood elementals gave the room a pleasant scent. I looked at my drafting table. I needed to draft a temple and build it if I wanted to complete the chain quests for the Sullen God.  I sat at my drafting table when Jaesmin came in with Joy, “What are you working on, Tallis,” she asked, looking at the bank paper.

I asked her, “What do you know of the Sullen God?”

Jaesmin appeared to think before she said, “I am not familiar with the gods.”  Her statement didn’t make any sense. Jaesmin’s AI should have been upgraded to the level of Simba, and therefore, she should have been freed to comment on it. For a time, I tickled Joy as she giggled before the two left me so I could work.

I took out my tools and got to work.  Whatever direction the Sullen God quests took me, I would deal with it, but I would at least explore them.  I worked on recreating the Temple of Athena from my memories.  It shouldn’t be a difficult build, and I was excited to recreate it.

I was finished by morning, and the plans were ready for what I expected would be a two-day build for my team.

Very Rare Temple to the Sullen God 500,000 Health, Requires Masonry Structures 43, Masonry Foundations 23, Ritual Enchanting 23 (Bonus: Houses four Priests, spawn rate 1 priest per day, Level 50) (Bonus: provides +50% experience from crafting if faith aligns with the Sullen God) Effect: Building Regenerates 1% health every 24 hours

I looked at the bonuses, and maybe the Sullen God was a god for crafters. The bonuses were not impressive for my drafting skill level. But then I realized that the temple did not have a range—it affected everyone in the city in which it was built. The experience bonus was a little bitter as the admins still had not adjusted the experience rewards for drafting building plans.  I was getting as much experience for drafting these very rare temple plans that took me almost ten game hours as an alchemist got for brewing a very rare potion that probably took them less than thirty minutes. And if the alchemist had enough skill, he could brew the potion in larger batches—multiplying his experience gains. 

I just hoped Mad Dog was correct, and when the players entered the game, I could sell my stockpiled building plans for a lot of gold.  Jaesmin was unavailable to help with the build due to watching Joy.  So, it was just Sanso and me as the rest of my builders were busy with other projects.  Jaesmin joined us after we finished the stone foundation, and Elice took over to watch Joy.  Our other builders were off completing important projects at the outpost and for the village. 

By the end of the first day of construction, the temple was well on its way.  We all retreated to the inn for a meal.  Black Beauty approached us with a smile and carried Joy, “Tallis, I will return this little ray of sunshine to you.  I don’t know why the admins have us changing diapers in here.  It seems like that would be a negative for raising a child NPC.”  She had a grin on her face, though, telling me she didn’t mind it. 

“Are you going to choose the same race when you create your new avatar?”  I asked Black Beauty.

“Yes, the admins are letting us save our settings and unique names to thank us for participating in the testing.  So, I will just need to load it with my login, and I will look exactly the same, except I lose all my cool gear.  Grinder plans to do the same so he can court your huntress.  I think Mad Dog is undecided.  His name went well with his wolfkin race, but I think he is considering changing to a dusk elf or dragonkin.  The dragonkin has an experience penalty, so I am betting he won’t choose it,” she said with a chuckle as Mad Dog focused on efficient gameplay.

“I wished you could stay just to babysit,” I said while taking Joy.

“Yeah, me too. It feels—almost real.  I can’t believe when I return, she will be an entire year older,”  Black Beauty replied.  “I have to get going.  I am trying to help the enchanter level up.  She has given me a bunch of quests for rare ingredients.  It just sucks that the bow she is making with them won’t be available.”

“Maybe you could repeat the quest when you rejoin?”  I said optimistically.

“It is a level 100 bow, and from what we are reading, the leveling system is going to get a hard nerf. They want to make leveling painfully slow. You should focus on getting a few more levels, Tallis.” She advised.

I looked at my pathetic level of 39.  “Maybe.  I think I am going to visit the other hard-wired player, Danny.  I hope to convince her to relocate to Malcum.  Mad Dog thinks she is over level 100 and might make a great ally.”  Mad Dog, Grinder, and Black Beauty were just in the 80s in level.  They couldn’t play non-stop like hard-wired players. 

We had dinner, and then I returned home.  I decided to draft a second plan for the Temple to the Sullen God.  It was just in case the outpost could also benefit from it.  Or I could trick the new players on the game launch to build it and create more followers for the Sullen God. 

It only took a third of the time of the original work, about 3 hours.  I added the plans to my stockpile and then rested with Jaesmin.  Joy slept all night and woke up with us in the morning.  At least the devs didn’t make babies that cried in the middle of the night for a feeding. 

We continued building the temple the next day, and by late evening, we finished, mostly due to Sanso’s prolific ability to create stone.  I assessed the building.

Very Rare Temple to the Sullen God 750,000 Health, (Bonus: Houses four Priests, spawn rate 1 priest per day, Level 75) (City Bonus: provides +75% experience from crafting if faith aligns with the Sullen God) Effect: Building Regenerates 1.5% health every 24 hours

The building received a 50% bump from our building efforts.  Well, Sanso’s effects.  He had spent some spell evolutions on improving the quality of stone he was able to create.  I hadn’t even seen that option for my summon stone spell.  He explained the path to unlock that evolution aspect of the spell. 

I was also happy to be getting four priests that would be level 75.  That was quite powerful for this stage of the game. If leveling was as difficult as Black Beauty indicated, the additional high-level NPCs would greatly help Malcum’s defense.

Personally, I would be getting almost double the experience from drafting my plans as well.  The increase in the building regeneration perk from my profession was an unexpected bonus on top of everything else.

Revive the Sullen God, Part 1, build a place of worship for the Sullen God

Complete.  Reward: 50,000 experience, a Scroll of Inspiration

The experience was not enough to get me to level 40.  The scroll of inspiration was an epic item, and on reading the details, I nearly dropped it when it appeared in my hand.

Scroll of Inspiration: When crafting an item that you developed the recipe for, you can increase the rank one rarity level

Did this mean that I could draft the library plans again and increase their rarity back to legendary?  I had two epic plans: the Epic Adventurer’s Guild and the Epic Grand Library.  Could I even have a second adventurer’s guild hall in my city?  I asked Mad Dog, and he replied through chat that larger cities had multiple ones, so he thought it was possible.  The library would be nice, but we still lacked the skill to build it. A legendary guild hall might require a higher skill levels than the epic plans, too.

I received another epic quest from the Sullen God chain.

Revive the Sullen God, Part 4, build an altar in a place of worship to the Sullen God

I didn’t understand why the altar in the temple didn’t already qualify.  The mystery was solved when the first NPC priest was summoned, as it was their respawn point.  The altar in the quest was required for the priests to accept new followers to the Sullen God.  The temple was apparently not enough to add followers.  The good news was that many of our citizens were interested in following the defunct god after they saw the temple.  So once the alter was completed, I would be able to complete part 2 of the quest chain easily.

Revive the Sullen God, Part 2, accumulate 100 followers for the Sullen God

So that is what I worked on in the evening, putting a big effort into generating the plans.  Drafting what I imagined an altar to the Sullen God should look like.

Very Rare Alter to the Sullen God (worship building upgrade), Requires Masonry 23, Blacksmithing 23, Woodcraft 23 (Bonus: +25% skill advancement for NPCs who worship at the alter for 72 hours after donation) (Effect: +5 levels to temple priests, upgrade one priest, one rank) Effect: Building Regenerates 1% health every 24 hours (stacks with similar effects)

I immediately had a massive dilemma.  It appeared my newly acquired scroll could make the alter increase to epic rank.  The bonuses were already pretty spectacular, but how much further could they go at epic rank?  Manarag, my blacksmith, would also need to help with the construction.  It was also going to utilize 5,000 coins worth of gold.  It was not my best idea to add all that gold inlay to the plans.  Now, should I use the scroll?