“What happened to this place?” Sang asked as she bent down to pick up a piece of paper. “Look!” she said, showing it to Van. It was an advertisement encouraging people to join a nearby player-run city. There were dozens of these papers scattered around the town.
“This place has been completely abandoned!” Van shouted, hearing his voice echo through the empty streets of the town. The bank had been completely destroyed; its roof had collapsed, damaging the building beyond repair. The clocktower that was in the center of the town had fallen over. Van could only see a few NPCs walking around, but they were just the basic NPCs who were automatically generated by any town.
“My home! Silver Peak! It’s ruined! Completely ruined!” Van moaned as he sank to his knees.
“Damn, this sucks,” Sang said, putting a hand on Van’s shoulder. “Any idea what happened?”
“We must have been attacked… multiple times,” he mumbled as he stared around at the various indicators of violence. There were scorched marks around some of the doors to the shops and heavy damage to most of the structures. “I wasn’t here to protect this place. Crap. When a city owner doesn’t log in for a solid two weeks, the city’s protections lower and players are free to attack, even if it isn’t the war season. Arrrg, why did I completely forget about this?”
“We've been busy; you know, with aliens?" Sang offered. "Your absence definitely shows,” Sang said. “That explains why there are recruitment posters here.”
“All of that progress. Gone, in the blink of an eye. It’s bad enough that they deleted Sivlander… now this? This is ridiculous.”
“So, what do we do? If our plans to rally up an army have failed, we have to figure some other strategy for getting into Bloodrock. Maybe we should come up with some kind of disguise?” Sang offered.
“No! We’re not leaving this place!” Van said. “I’ll rebuild this whole damn town if I have to. Silver Peak was one of the greatest accomplishments in my life and I am never going to abandon it again.”
“Well, that’s nice and all, Van, but don’t you have to own the town first?”
Van shrugged, but Sang was correct. Sivlander had founded the town, so Van’s new character wouldn’t have the ability to build up the town without permission from the original character. Unless…
“Wait! I know!” Van said as he walked over to the base of the Sivlander statue that he had built. This statue was where all of the controls and settings for the city were activated. Van fiddled with the display, opening up a menu.
City Status: Unclaimed
City Rating: -1
Renown Rating: 0
Total Net Value: 50,000 GP
WARNING: UNCLAIMED CITY WILL DEGRADE INTO NON-CITY STATUS IN 3 WEEKS
Van clicked on the City Status section. The display said:
Status: Unclaimed
Owner: ERROR: CHARACTER NOT FOUND
TRANSFER CODE: ______________
Van stared long and hard at the transfer code space. This was what would allow a player to transfer ownership to another player if they felt inclined to abandon their city, or if they wanted to give another player a chance to rule as the king. At the beginning, when he had founded the city, he had received the transfer code, but he hadn’t bothered to write it down because he knew he could change it to whatever he wanted; he thought he had gotten around to changing it, though... There were only two codes that he would ever use for transferring items to players, so he shrugged and tried one. The word ERROR flashed before him, eliciting a sigh from him. If the second code didn’t work, it would mean that the township was lost for good. He gritted his teeth and typed in the second code.
A loud woomph greeted Van as the clocktower suddenly flew back to its original position. A pulse of energy blasted from the clocktower, causing the rest of the buildings to automatically repair themselves. The damaged frames began to heal, bricks appeared where there had been holes in walls, and the bank’s roof floated back up into its rightful position.
“Wow! You fixed the entire town! How’d you do that?” Sang asked.
“Transferring the town repairs all of the core buildings,” Van said, pointing to the damaged guard tower. “The things that come free with a town will be restored, but we’re going to need to repair some of these establishments by hand.”
“Still, good work. So, you’re in control of the town now?” Sang asked as she examined one of the market stalls that had flipped itself upright.
“Yeah, I remembered my transfer code, thank goodness,” Van said. “Now I’m the rightful owner, we can get this place running again. It’ll be a good base of operations for our movement against Bloodrock.”
Sang nodded, then paused. “Do you hear that?” she asked as she pointed towards a tavern called The Silver Axe.
Van could see that the lights were on inside of the tavern and he could hear some voices coming from within.
“Are those NPCs?” Sang asked as she drew her bow.
Van shook his head. “Nah, NPCs aren’t that loud. I didn’t even notice the lights were on in there. Let’s check it out. It might be players just stopping for a drink, but it could also be trouble. Be on your guard.”
Sang nodded as they approached the tavern. There were loud shouts and laughter coming from the inside of the building, making Van’s heart race a little. If they were bandits or raiders, they’d be able to easily kill him and automatically loot the town. Whenever an owner of a town was killed, the town would go into pillage mode, letting anyone steal as much gold from buildings as they wanted. He had to play it cool and not let on that he was the mayor of the town.
Van grabbed the brass doorknob, took a deep breath, and looked at Sang. She nodded. Van threw the door open wide. Much to his surprise, he could see six people sitting at the bar of the tavern, laughing up a storm. He recognized a few of them—they had been members of the town when he had been playing Sivlander. Most of them had recently signed on to join the town of Silver Peak, but he’d been forcibly removed from the game before he’d gotten a chance to really get to know them.
“Hail!” said a tall, brunette woman wearing holy robes of the White Fox. Her name was Bidane and she had been one of Van’s top recruits. “Be you friend, or foe? If you’re foe, I’m afraid there’s not much here for you! The owner’s long gone and the town is in ruins!”
“No, I’m not a foe!” Van said, trying to think of the right thing to say. He couldn’t just tell them that he was Van, primarily because he was still having to lay low with Draco on the prowl. He wasn’t sure if the aliens were capable of watching his every step, and so they were under orders to stay incognito.
“Then pull up a glass and drink!” shouted Kylian the fighter. Kylian was a tough as nails older man who was enjoying the game in his lengthy retirement. Van could see that there were a few other players along with these two who he knew, but he didn’t recognize them. They must have been friends of Bidane and Kylian.
“No drinking for me!” Van boldly declared as he climbed atop one of the bar tables. “Allow me to introduce myself! I am Semimodo, bard of renown and courage! I am here with a message from the ever-powerful Sivlander!”
This caught the whole of the group’s attention. They all stopped their drinking and leaned in to listen to Van’s words.
“Alas, Sivlander’s time on this mortal plane is done! He has chosen to walk the path of going back to college and thus won’t have time to play this game anymore! But one of his most trusted friends, his cousin Zan, has been chosen to take control of this town. You can see by the fact that the city is restoring itself that I am now in charge!”