Town Builder - 97 - Flip The Script

Chapter 97: Flip The Script

All we needed now was an actual fleet to use the secret base. As the marines spawned one each day, they could defend the secret base without drawing suspicion. We needed to complete our agreement with Eternal Legacy before assembling our steam-powered skyship. I also needed to get the heavy weapons mounted around the illusionary entrance as marines became available to crew them. Adding four heavy, repeating crossbows to Golden Storm’s purchase list was easy. They were expensive since they were player-crafted, but the quantity of ammunition he requested was the true expense. 

Golden Storm suggested purchasing twenty-five thousand bolts for each weapon due to the bolts' non-reusable nature and high firing rate of one per second. Having watched the videos on the forums, Golden Storm knew a raid from an experienced guild could last an hour or more. He also predicted that siege weapons and ammunition would become scarce as guilds attacked and defended towns and cities. The bolts for the repeating crossbows were at least standard bolts for all crossbows and could be found in limited quantities from NPC vendors.

This gave me a focus for the next NPC auction. I would focus on producing ammunition for light ballistas and light repeating crossbows since we were going with these for our defenses. At least the game simplified ballista ammunition into three categories: small, medium, and large. 

The small category was just over four feet in length and as thick as my wrist. They were the type used in the ballistae that Golden Storm was obtaining for the two new defense towers in Phoenix’s Rest. I hoped that if we could set up our own production, I wouldn’t have to rely on obtaining them from the player auction. No cities in the game sold ballista or other ammunition for siege weapons.

I had drafted six more copies of the tower plans, but the essence for their construction was steep, and my NPC build teams were stretched. We were not going to add any more towers for this next Incursion. 

The medium-type bolt was designed for mobile ballistae utilized in assaults. They averaged six feet in length and were considerably thicker. The large or heavy ballistae ammunition was not significantly larger than the medium, but was constructed from denser materials, either special wood or metal. The heavy ballistae needed to be mounted on a stable surface to accommodate the recoil, making them immobile and best used for defense–or skyships. 

Unfortunately, at this stage of the game, players were only producing light ballista. They lacked the skill to craft a medium or heavy ballista. However, one guild had obtained a handful of medium ballista from a dungeon where you had to assault a castle. Although there were videos of the guild obtaining the heavy ballista in the forums, no one knew where the dungeon was located.

With the NPC auction rapidly approaching, I spent some time with Mad Dog and Golden Storm to identify NPCs in the auction to support our own siege weapon manufacturing. I even caved and brought in Simba to help with the selection. Either Simba could see more information about NPCs, or the Matriarch was feeding him information. Still, it was one task Simba had been reliably performing as my AI starter companion.

I projected the NPC auction in my private residence in the Lord’s Manor. We were all shocked by what was happening. The NPC auction had gotten entirely out of control. There was not a single NPC who didn’t have a bid. Mad Dog explained after a quick search, “Cities that lost a large number of NPCs in the Incursion are getting bonus slots, mate. Rumor is even the ape-conquered cities have bidding slots in the auction, but everyone thinks the NPCs the apes do recruit will just leave.”

I skimmed over the update notifications and confirmed what Mad Dog had said. There was even a new talent related to the auction that had a number of threads associated with it.

Behind the Curtain – see who has the current high bid on an NPC in the auction

This was useful, but only for large guilds to know who they were competing against to gauge how much effort to invest in securing an NPC. Although any player with the NPC auction tab could choose the talent. In the forums, many smaller guilds were offering a service fee for reporting which player was bidding on what NPC. That workaround meant players would not have to waste a precious talent on the ability. I was sure the devs would eventually close this loophole of sharing information, but for now, a few enterprising players were charging ten to twenty gold per check.

With Simba here, Mad Dog and Golden Storm wanted him to find other hidden gems in the auction; however, due to his reluctance, I suspected he was already bending the rules too much—or was just being an ass. After the hours we spent, I was satisfied with my list of novice and expert NPCs. One would think that the more people doing something, the quicker the task progresses; however, the opposite is true in this VR game, as everyone had an opinion and speculation about every NPC. I decided that next time it would just be Mad Dog and I.

After they left, I decided to tackle Tanguin’s request for elite NPC units. With my drafting skill at 47, I thought I could produce something uniquely useful. I knew that the more I pushed the ritual enchanting for benefits, the higher the essence cost would be to build. Additionally, my ritual enchanting was still developing, currently sitting at 18.

I had a pretty solid grasp on ensuring NPCs would spawn. The respawn timer was almost always 24 hours, unless it was an elite NPC, then it could be longer. Since I was unsure how to create a mounted NPC, I decided to go with infantry. I could have gone the mage route, but after my guard barracks with time mages, I was nervous of the possible rare essence cost. If I went with ranged specialist NPCs, I didn’t think they would be able to range away from the city fortifications. I wanted expendable NPCs to confront the Incursion forces on the battlefield outside the city walls.

My first attempt was a failure, but I knew it would sell extremely well on the player auction.

“Eternal” Rare Barracks, Requires Masonry 43, Masonry: Foundations 43 (Generates one level 30 Captain every seven game days, limit 1) (Generates One Squad, Spawn Rate 1 per day, Level 20, limit 8) Structure Regenerates 1% health every 24 hours (stacks with similar effects)

I had gotten a few things right. I was close because I had been trying for six soldiers and one captain. I didn’t understand why the total was eight soldiers and one captain, especially given that the small barracks I designed only had six beds and one private room with a seventh bed. 

The true failure stemmed from the low levels of the soldiers and the captain. I had been trying to control the essence cost of building the structure, but instead nerfed the NPC power too much. Yes, there would be a bonus for building materials that typically averaged +50% for my experienced build teams, but even they would not last long in an Incursion and soon the players would out level them.

I was not going to expend the resources building it, so I called one of the guild members to post it for sale. It should get tens of thousands of gold from the wealthy guilds. I put more effort into my second attempt, and Joy even briefly came in to ask me about what I was doing. She tried to slip in and getting permission to visit the lumberjacks across the river.

“Nice try, Joy. The Shiverwood had level 40 to 50 creatures,” I scolded her brazenness.

“Simba said he would watch me, and he is level 42 like you, Dad,” she pleaded, batting her eyelashes. She did look cute, but I had a stronger will than that.

“My answer is no, and don’t bother asking your mother for permission.” I retorted sternly. She stormed off like a petulant teenager, which she was rapidly approached. I went into my interface and attached my personal guard, Jorrick, to keep an eye on her in case she disobeyed me. I also called Simba into my drafting room to get answers.

“Why are you encouraging Joy to explore areas where she is likely to get herself killed?” I asked heatedly.

Simba looked unapologetic, “She asked me, no the other way around. And why are you holding back her potential, Tallis? You know what she is, she will adapt and grow.”

“What is she?” I growled at my companion. 

Simba smirked smugly, “Well, if you don’t know, I can’t tell you.”

Why did I get stuck with a companion who had an attitude? “You may leave,” I held my tongue and dismissed my companion to begin working on tier two quests in the adventurer’s hall. The monotony of completing quests was the best punishment I could think of for him, as he clearly hated doing them. 

I considered Joy’s rapid growth. AIs were shaped by their environment, and Malcum had a supportive NPC population. She had friends who I considered of good character. Therefore, I was not overly concerned about her eventual disposition. Since the players arrived, I had clearly delineated between humans and AIs, favoring my human friends. Sometimes the AIs behaved more human than actual humans, though. For instance, I was still mending my relationship with Sanso after pushing him so hard to rush to complete the secret naval base.

I didn’t ponder too long before making another attempt at an elite unit for Tanguin. This time I had a clear idea of what I wanted the unit to do. It would focus on attacking a specific enemy and take them down as quickly as possible. I planned to utilize more essences in the enchanting for this draft to see the outcome. The plans took me almost a day to finish, but the result was much better this time around.

“Eternal” Epic Barracks, Requires Masonry 43, Masonry: Foundations 43 (Generates one level 40 Champion Knight every seven game days, limit 1) (Generates One Squad of Knights, Spawn Rate 1 per day, Level 40, limit 6) Structure Regenerates 1% health every 24 hours (stacks with similar effects)

These were fantastic plans, as the Champion Knight was a boss rank, meaning it should take eight players of equivalent level to defeat him. The knights were merely of the elite rank and support. The essence cost and maintenance was too high to make building these barracks effective on a large scale. I also assumed the portal strength would increase if I built several of these micro barracks. I thought I could do slightly better by perhaps giving the spawned knights an affinity. Being knights, they should already have high defense, and since these NPCs were expendable, I decided to maximize their defense.

As I drafted the final version of the plans, the NPC auction closed, and I had to take some time to follow my bids to fruition. Only five of my bids ended up being contested, and even then, I eventually won all but one wood turner. His bid exceeded what I was willing to pay, and I dropped out after it surpassed 25,000.

With the NPC auction closed, I shifted back to the barracks. We only had three days before the Incursion, so most likely the NPCs would not spawn in time anyway. Still, this was great practice in refining my ritual enchanting.

“Eternal” Epic Barracks, Requires Masonry 43, Masonry: Foundations 43 (Generates one level 40 Champion Blood Knight every seven game days, limit 1) (Generates One Squad of Blood Knights, Spawn Rate 1 per day, Level 40, limit 6) Structure Regenerates 1% health every 24 hours (stacks with similar effects)

A blood knight had magical abilities to drain opponents and heal themselves. We would have to get lots of blood essences to build them, but I was happy that these squads could be effective for months in the game. Mad Dog found sources for blood essences just seconds after reading the plans. The best part was that these NPCs were expendable, so they could be sacrificed during an Incursion—the only penalty was having to wait until they respawned. 

The three days leading up to the Incursion, I was focused on restocking my plans to sell. Although the scaling dungeon was supplying the duchy with gold and essences from the tax, every building we finished added to our maintenance costs. I was not too excited as the day of the next Incursion finally arrived.

The two ballista towers were completed and manned in Phoenix’s Rest. Even with adding another five hundred players to the town population, I was confident that our defense was much stronger for the coming Incursion, and the attackers would be weakened by 5% from my new talent. Still, we had shifted most of our defensive forces to the dungeon town anyway. I remained in Malcum atop our gatehouse, waiting for the announcement. When the portal started to rip open, no one was prepared for what came next.

World Announcement! This Incursion is an attack Incursion! Your Realm is attacking the Water Realm! Plunder and pillage before the timer runs out! You cannot establish respawn points on the other side unless you possess a Token of the Affiliated Realm. If the portal closes and you die, you will respawn in your last respawn location in your Realm!

My guild immediately opened a chat to discuss the curveball. I was just relieved I was not going to risk losing any NPCs during this Incursion. There was no point in sending them through. I overrode chat to let the guild know. “I am shifting our forces to a defensive stance and sending the reserve force to Goatyah.” People acknowledged my statement, but they were more excited about the possibilities.

Grinder was the most excited. “Mad Dog, guilds are already surging toward the portal! We need to form teams.” He was pleading like a little kid wanting to go to the park.

“You are not taking Mira with you!” I interrupted the chatter.

“You're no fun, mate!” Grinder retorted morosely. I knew he was close to converting my huntress to a personal companion, but I was not going to risk her dying on the other side of an Incursion Rift.

“Enough squawking,” Mad Dog said, silencing everyone in the chat. “I am creating four one-hundred-person invasion teams and pulling our members in…” Mad Dog quickly organized three one-hundred-person teams in Phoenix’s Rest and one team in Malcum to enter the portals. I declined an invitation, happy to get some relief from the constant fighting.

Then I cursed and thought the admins were targeting me again. I stopped grinding levels because I had relied on the experience gained from my duchy’s defense against Incursions. This cycle, I would earn nothing! My mood quickly shifted from elated to sour. I changed my mind and decided to enlist in the team entering the portal in Malcum. Black Beauty was leading this team and smirked as I joined her at the front. Being level 42, I was the highest-level player in the guild after Danny.

Black Beauty caught up with me as we walked toward the rift extending two hundred feet into the sky. “About two dozen guilds have already entered. We are outside the walls of an island city, appearing on the beach. There are low-level sandworms, but nothing too dangerous. The city’s walls are made of sand and are regenerating, so we need to overwhelm them.”

We passed through the portal, and the bright green sky blinded me as white dunes spread before us. To our left was a blood-red ocean, with odd seagulls flying about. A timer appeared in my vision with eleven hours and twenty-eight minutes remaining. A player rushed past us, shouting joyously, “You respawn at the rift!” The sand carried him back into the assault on the walls, where arrows and spells flew as the players attempted to breach the sandy fortification.

Black Beauty had our ninety-seven guild members halt while she studied the situation. “This is going to help players practice their siege tactics,” she noted objectively.

Another player rushed past us, “The guard captains have realm tokens!” Someone had already obtained a token to have a spawn point in this realm?

Black Beauty looked us over and started giving orders. “Fan out, and get three rows of tanks in front. I want the healers focused on the first row for now. Buff the front liners and keep support at minimum, conserving mana. I want to be able to respond to any threat with heavy volleys of spells!” She surveyed the battlefield for a few moments.

“The Timeless Gods just wiped on our right, but cleared most of the defenders off the wall—we are going to follow up before they can regroup and break into the city—taking everything you can grab!” There was a brief war cry from our guild members, and we charged…

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