Town Builder - 65 - Painting a Target (Patreon)

Chapter 65 Painting a Target

Danny texted me as she couldn’t call me since she was no longer in the city.

“What did you do?! Look at the forums!”

I went to the layer forums and groaned. The pre-release players were talking about the five plans I had put in the player auction.

-Who made these? I haven’t seen any building plans with bonuses!

-It has to be one of the hard-wired players still in the game. They were just posted a few hours ago.

-Bid all you want. Divine Deviants is going to win the defense tower plans.

That was followed by three dozen guilds trying to get my attention to join them. The offerings were varied from straight-up salaries of $200,000 a year to leadership roles in their guilds. It was crazy as I scrolled through the lists of what these people would offer to retain my services exclusively. I knew that as soon as others figured out my path, they would fill this niche crafting profession with their own players.

There were even dozens of players in another forum thread speculating what skills were needed to draft building plans. Soon, I would not be unique. I had a huge head start on the new players since leveling and advancing skills had been nerfed. I read the growing threads too long and forcibly turned off the forums. Had I made a mistake? The plans were not overly impressive from my catalog, except for the tower with my regeneration class ability. It allowed buildings to have no upkeep costs.

I texted Danny, who had been reading the forums as well. “Guess I am popular.”

“Guess you don’t need my gold. Are you going to take any of these offers? They keep getting higher and higher as they fight for your services.” Danny replied.

“No. I don’t think there is a need. Hopefully, I can stay ahead of the curve for new crafters. Even if I can’t, there will always be a huge market for the building plans.” I surmised.

My interface pinged, and I went to it, and my stomach felt heavy. The admins were already nerfing my drafting ability and announcing how I had drafted the plans to the player population.

Please note the following changes have been made to the skill drafting:

   1) All drafting times for known recipes have been tripled

   2) All experience for drafting plans has been tripled to compensate

   3) The catalog of building plan recipes is equal to your drafting skill

Thank you, and enjoy the game!

Really? They made this patch just after I put five building plans on the market. Was this the Matriarch or the developers? And why would I care about experience? I couldn’t earn any experience currently!

After some quick research, I found the experience had been corrected, so I would no longer be earning the same experience as an alchemist producing a rare potion as I did for rare building plans. It was now a scaling experience scale in accordance with the difficulty and value of the final crafted item. Creating new recipes gave a 10x experience bonus as well. Maybe I could level from drafting instead of grinding in the future.

I took one last look at the auction before leaving to return to Malcum.

Very Rare Alchemy Shop                                Current Bid: 12,500 gold

Rare Stone Round Wall Tower                       Current Bid: 29,000 gold

Rare Blacksmith                                             Current Bid: 15,000 gold

Rare Apartment Building                                Current Bid: 1,500 gold

Rare Tannery/Leatherworks                           Current Bid: 9,500 gold

Just wow! The exchange rate was one gold to one dollar, so these players were exchanging real-world money to purchase these plans. The timer still had 91 hours, 29 minutes left. The admins must be cackling in glee. They would also take a five percent cut from me. I only wished I hadn’t put the timer at four game days. I could use the gold immediately.

Another game announcement hit my notifications, and I ground my teeth.

“Each player is now limited to purchasing 10,000 game gold daily.”

I swore as this new adjustment by the admins was going to choke how high the bids might reach. I wanted to punch someone—or kill something. I briefly glanced at the forum discussion, and the early-start players were not happy either. Wasn’t this game made to make money? If someone wanted to buy a million gold in a virtual reality game, why stop him?

I could collect my funds in my auction house in Malcum, so I ported back home with Titan. Danny had nothing better to do while on her skyship than read the forums and kept giving me updates. As Mad Dog had warned, the guilds were trying to locate me. In just six hours, they had established that Crystalhelm was where I had placed the plans in the auction. This meant the city would be crawling with the early start players now.

I wanted to contact Mad Dog in the real world to get his opinion on whether I should take any of these guilds up on their offer. Unfortunately, web access and communication with the outside world had not been established, and by the interface, it looked like this feature was a low priority.

On returning to Malcum, I took steps to ensure my little town would go undiscovered. I set the interface only to show inspected buildings’ names, health, and armor, hiding all their extra effects. Of course, someone with a high enough level in their analyze skill, they would be able to pierce the wall, but it was the best I could do.

Six new war mounts arrived while I headed to talk with Breda, my city planner. I quickly inspected them and nodded happily. All six were epic mounts and would be assigned riders. Their levels were just in the single digits at the moment, but when they were assigned a rider, the level would be raised to match them.

I found Breda leaning over her model of Malcum with the buildings clearly labeled. She didn’t like it when others touched the buildings. She looked up contemplatively. “Lord Tallis, you have returned. All is well?”

“It is.” I wasn’t going to tell her about the windfall coming as I was sure she would have it spent before it was even deposited. “I wanted to check our progress and see if you knew any other way to hide our building details from the analyze skill,” I said carefully studying the buildings. Breda had abandoned the expansion across the river in favor of expanding north toward the copper mines.

“Your obfuscation settings will match your own level,” Breda said. That made me wince as I was level 39. An analyze skill worked by adding the player's level to the level of the skill. So, a level 10 player with a level 30 analysis skill would be able to read the building’s abilities.

“Is there a way to switch it to rely on someone else’s level?” I asked. Breda was level 148 for instance.

“Not that I am aware of. It relies on the ruler of the town.” Breda said, to my disappointment.

“Is there a skill I could take to make it more difficult then?” I asked hopefully.

Breda thought for a moment. “I think all concealment skills are applicable. Obfuscate and Conceal are the two that come to mind. Obfuscate works on your person while conceal works on your gear.”

“Thank you, Breda.” I didn’t want to add any skills at the moment as I couldn’t level them anyway.  I indicated the map, “Are we not adding the lake north of the town?” I had a grand plan to excavate a natural border by building a lake north of town and providing fish to the people. The more variety in the diet, the higher the city morale would be.

Breda looked undecided and handed me two sketches. The first had a crescent lake, covering about one square mile, and the other was an oval lake, about twice that size. She explained, “The first one was in mind to be defensive in nature. The second, larger lake, was to create fish spawn sites to add the commodity to the town. But…”

Breda had paused, so I probed, “But what?”

“Fish smell. I didn’t want a fish market in the city,” Breda admitted. I had drafted the crescent lake as an alternative. The problem with it is we are trying to expand Malcum’s border to encompass the copper mine. Not only would the resources involved in excavating the lake be extreme, but the zone of influence is diminished across the water.” She pointed at the river that ran along Malcum. “We can only influence fifty yards of the river's opposite shore.”

I wasn’t sure if the water was even a viable defense barrier in the game but I liked the idea of it. “What about using the crescent lake plans as a border and moving the lower on the other side with a massive bridge connecting them?”

“The amount of infrastructure and resources required make it unfeasible. We are talking fifty thousand gold at a minimum. Not to mention the builders we would have to divert to excavate the lake, slowing progress elsewhere,” Breda explained.

“Do it.” I decided. “I will bring you the coin.”

Breda looked about to argue but held back. “I will start plans. We can shelve the northern wall for now and start with a moat as we expand the lake.”

“Excellent,” I said and handed her two rings, both identical and gave +15 to both charisma and intelligence. They were relatively cheap on the auction as they required level 30 to wear. Breda didn’t have any magic items and received them graciously.

My next stop was Tanguin, my general. The forest giant was drilling some new orc recruits. “Lord Tallis, care to join us for some training?”

“No, I have these for you.” Tanguin got rings giving +15 to charisma and +15 constitution.

“Thank you lord,” he bowed his head as he put the rings on.

“Take these as well to hand out among the men,” I handed him nine more rings, each giving +30 to various stats. I guessed one of the test players or hard-wired players had taken an artificing class and had churned out the rings to level their skill. “What is our military strength?”

“Not much has changed in Malcum. Nine angelkin captains, average level 61. One hundred forty-nine giantkin infantry, average level 32. Twelve scouts, average level 44. The cavalry is in flex; right now, we have 37 heavy orc cavalry with a range of levels from 20 to 40. Do you want the forces stationed at the orc settlement of Plainsrider?” Tanguin reported succinctly. I could have checked my interface, but it sounded better coming from him.

“Very good. If any players enter Malcum, give Galana aid in patrolling the streets.” I had a handful of buildings that created city guards, but Galana had only 28 city guards beyond that, and their levels were in the low 20s.

“Help Galana?” Tanguin said with a smirk. Galana was a giantkin as well, and I was fairly certain the two had a relationship. But there was a friendly rivalry between the two.

“Use a pair of the rings as a peace offering and make plans for the players. I am guessing it will not be long before some show up. I made a mistake, and they are searching the area around Crystalhelm, which is three hundred miles south.” My words had the giantkin nod seriously.

I left them to return home and spend time with Joy and Jaesmin. I got to listen to Jaesmin talk about all the construction projects in town. Joy appeared to be getting older every day, and it appeared that she was almost listening to our conversation.

I moved to my drafting table for the bad news. It turned out my drafting skill, with a level of 48, was enough to hold my entire catalog of building plans. I tested removing a recipe.

Are you sure you wish to delete the following drafting plan: Basic Chicken Coup, holds 20 chickens, Health 200, Requires Masonry 1, Woodcraft Carpentry 3

I hit the accept button, and the plan was removed. The slot I had freed up had a 24-hour cooldown timer on it before a plan could replace it. I was also happy to note that all professions that used recipes- cooking, alchemy, and smithing- had the same limitations as I did in terms of the number of recipes they could learn. The number of recipes matched their current skill level.

I tried to decide what to draft this evening. I would place two more plans in the player auction. With the size of the world, it was not like I was giving the other guilds a huge advantage. Still, it would be best to milk the rich players for everything I could.

Rare Medium Guild House, Health 300,000, Requires Masonry Structures 43 (Bonus +50% to all pool recovery, +25% experience gain for 8 hours if rested for 8 hours in guild house)

Rare City Hall, Health 80,000, Requires Masonry Foundations 23, Masonry Structures 43 (Bonus +12% to City Population Morale, +2% Tax Revenue)

These two plans did not highlight my ability to add magical bonuses to buildings but were good enough to have the players fight over. Both rare plans took me the night to replicate. The process of crafting the plans was not quite three times longer than in the past because I didn’t use the system’s automated drafting system and did most of the work myself. Still, I was going to have to ration my time drafting better in the future. It made the pain of losing the dozens of plans I had prepared to sell all the more painful.

I finished before dawn and spent the early morning with Jaesmin in the bedroom. The intimacy felt awkward with Joy nearby. As the rest of Malcum began its day, I joined the build teams for the day. I worked primarily with Sanso on some new shops in the trade district. We worked well together and got a lot done. I took breaks during the day to get updates from Danny, who was exploring the forums and growing in-game wiki. It was a fairly cut-throat out there, and the guilds were already at war, which was sparked by the plans I had posted on the auction. Danny would arrive early the following day.

“Lord Tallis!” Curraen caught me as I was returning from a dinner at the inn. The master cook, Fareth, always prepared the most delectable food with amazing buffs. I turned and nodded to the master leather worker. “We have completed your new saddle!”

I was surprised they had finished the task in just over a day’s time, but I followed him. We went to his shop and found a glossy black saddle with polished silver highlights. The saddle even had a pillion seat. I eagerly inspected the saddle and frowned slightly.

Lord’s Saddle of the Sullen God, must be a worshipper of the Sullen God to use the benefits. +20% Mount Speed, All Mounts Stats +5, 20% damage reduction from physical attacks, 2% chance to deflect magic attacks

“It is extremely impressive, and the design is amazing, Curraen, but I am too low of a level to utilize it.” The minimum level noted was 50 under the description. I could still use the saddle, just get no benefits.

Curraen patted me on the back. “The bridle reduces the level requirement of the saddle by 15. Once you hit level 50, find me, and I will give you a new bridle. Manarag made the horseshoes.” He handed me four heavy, shiny horseshoes.

Horseshoes of Speed, +10 to Mounts Speed, +10% to overall speed, the entire set must be equipped and must be attached to hooves

This is fantastic. With these items, I can grind with Titan by kiting monsters again. In fact, these items would almost double Titan’s speed. “Thank everyone for me. These will be incredibly useful.” My NPC citizens had essentially crafted items I needed without me asking.

Curraen took the saddle, bridle, and shoes to the stables where two of his daughters worked as my horse masters. The next time I left with Titan, I was going to have some fun. Maybe a trip to the Plainsrider settlement was in my future.

That evening, I only drafted one set of plans as they were more time-intensive, taking nearly twelve hours even with doing the work myself.

Epic Adventurer’s Guild (Capacity 250), 250,000 Health, Requires Masonry Foundations 43, Masonry Structures 43, Woodcraft Carpentry 43, Enchanting Ritual Magic 23 (Bonus: +15% experience for eight hours after resting for eight hours in a room, Effect: Spawns 250 Tier 1 quests, 200 Tier 2 quests, 150 Tier 3 quests. 50 Tier 4 quests, 10 Tier 5 quests, 50% chance for 1 Tier 6 quest, 10% chance for 1 Tier 7 quest daily)

The Guild Hall was not for sale as I added it to the stack of Danny’s plans for her new town. I checked my messages and she was only an hour away so I waited for her.

Her chartered skyship appeared as a dot in the sky that grew slowly. The townsfolk came out and watched the skyship approach and land in the pond in the park. Pale-skinned gnomes worked the rigging as the ship settled. Danny and her elf companion waited patiently on deck for the gnomes to lower a ramp to the shore.

When she approached, she had a glowing smile, “You really stirred up the shit, Tallis. The ripples of the plans you placed in the auction house have even rippled to the real world. Speculation is running rampant.”

“How did you get information from the real world?” I asked, confused.

“My pod is at my family’s house. They can manually communicate with me.” I nodded but was thinking of making use of that. Befriending Danny was paramount, and giving her the Epic Adventurer’s Guild Hall was no longer a debate. Maybe I could contact the Silver Linings Playbook Guild a little earlier than planned.

“So, when do we leave to conquer the iron mines and build my town?” Danny asked. Her townsfolk were disembarking behind her and were mostly human, with some elves mixed in. They looked uncertain, and I knew their morale must be shit right now. I tapped my interface to get my townsfolk to help settle the people temporarily.

Danny was waiting for my response. “How about after lunch?”