Rule: Part 3

"Welp, let's get to walking." Hell sighed as he turned toward the gates headed south. "Emperor Void wants to rule the world." he wanted to sound sarcastic, but I could tell that the prospect tickled him pretty good as well. How else could he quickly gain gear near the level of my own?

But I had no intention of walking. I'd already spent too long with such an inefficient means of moving. I grabbed Lethe and pointed to Hell. One of my skeletons understood and grabbed him too. I drained all of my stamina in one leap. It was such a powerful leap that I felt the ground beneath my boots give as I took off. The air whipped around me as we flew. We weren't going to touch down for a bit, so decided I'd get the apology out of the way before we landed. I used a spell to stop the wind from being so loud. "Sorry about the lack of warning. I forgot."

Lethe was giggling like mad. So I didn't need to be forgiven? "Did you see the look on Hell's face when your skeleton picked him up like a grocery bag?" she sniggered as she tried to calm herself down. She wasn't entirely successful. "And you're not forgiven. This is the third time. No excuses." She shoved her dagger at my eye, but it deflected off of the shield on my helmet.

"Mythic gear doesn't have openings. Eye holes, armpits, joints, none of them are weaknesses. One of the things that makes mythic gear so badass. Same with unique gear. Some legendary are the same, but not all of them. It's a good fact to know for a specialist of assassination." Definitely a bonus when fighting a mage. Some spells called down rain or massive area attacks that always managed to find all of the weak points in armor. It was very annoying, and one of the reasons I liked magic so much. The field generated by amazing gear made that tactic much less effective. "I'm going to give Hell the orc crown gear. When we take the pixies, I'll let you have that. Sound good? Does that make up for not warning you when I'm going to leap?"

She thought about that for a second. Hopefully she didn't notice my lack of a numerical specification. If she agreed, I could use that agreement as justification to never warn her again. Getting her flustered was always fun. "Sure. You give me the pixy gear and I'll consider us even. Are you ever going to take that armor off?"

"Nope. No punk is as intimidating as the Dark Elf Emperor." That was definitely the truth. This armor was super scary. Not wearing the cape made me look even more dangerous, in my opinion. Plate was much more intimidating when you could see all of it. Also, I had no chance at beating anyone who owned their keep without it. "Why?"

She shrugged. I wondered at that as we landed, blasting the boars to bloody shards around us. We were back to the plain around Zezhria. South side, this time, but still the pasture. I could see for miles around. Boars were everywhere. And mixed in were the giant boars that ripped through their own kind with almost rabid abandon. I activated a weak raising spell on the corpses around me and a few of them were intact enough to rise. Their bones grew as they gained the size of a bus. They were level one twenty five. More skeleton than zombie, but they fell into my en masse orders and started killing the boars that surrounded them as they headed for the woods. I sniggered as I leapt again.

Lethe blocked the volume of the air this time. "Why didn't you warn me! Seriously, there's no excuse this time!" I grinned at her. She was in control at the moment, but I could imagine the look on her face. Too bad I'd given her a helmet that hid it. "What?"

"You agreed that as long as I gave you the pixy armor, you'd be fine about me not warning you. Never said how many times." Understanding was followed by anger on her face. I couldn't stop from laughing. "No take-backs."

"Bastard." She grumbled as she let the air resume its angry roar. I hadn't expected to get such gratification so quickly. I also wasn't expecting her to activate stealth. She turned misty in my arms. I glanced at her, confused, and then decided I didn't really care. It wasn't like she would fly out of my grip, she just wasn't as visible. Then the air was silent again. "You can see me! I knew it! How can you see me when I'm in stealth?" had she gotten a buff from leveling her stealth?

"I told you to kill the stealthed imps. Did you?" she nodded. But she was still glaring at me, so I assumed there was more to it than that. "You're not fully visible, but even if I couldn't see you I'm still holding you. Not like you phase through me when you activate stealth." she looked away, so I figured I was in the clear.

That's when we landed. I was expecting to see the familiar sight of boars as far as the eye could see. I should be in the pasture surrounding Foothills, the first orc city. There should be boars. But instead of boars, we were surrounded by elephants. These were the pasture beasts? Elephants? I checked, and they were level one. Killing such massive beasts so easily would definitely feel good, especially as a level one player. I blasted one with a fireball and it exploded in a huge fountain of blood. I felt a dozen of them enter my menagerie. I added this area as a possible hunting ground for levels one through fifteen. I used a wind spell to lacerate as many elephants as I could, leaving plenty of meat for my new pets. 

I raised one, though. It was always a good idea to have skeletons. Besides, the huge skeletal elephant with shredded meat hanging off of it was intimidating as all hell even if he didn't have spiked black metal barbs ripping out of the bones all over the place and ragged armor plating nailed into its body. Boars maxed out at busses, but elephants got bigger than houses. Each time it took a step, it ripped through an entire elephant. The wide feet weren't that intimidating in their skeletal form, but the spine-like trunk was way more.

Admiring my new pet, I grinned as I headed toward Foothills. Any species that herded elephants was definitely worth my time. I used a rush ability to blast through the elephants to the horizon, eventually I'd find the walls of Foothills without trying to push through them with my face. I didn't see any mountains, but that didn't mean they weren't there. The fog probably hid them.

"I don't remember these things from the beta." Lethe grumbled as she slashed an elephant to pieces, easily keeping pace with me. Hell was enjoying himself as he carved a much wider swath of destruction. "Were they around when you tried an orc?"

"Nope. In the beta, there weren't any natural monsters at all. Don't you remember fighting nothing but npcs? I sure do. I like the monsters, though. Sometimes I would run around for hours without finding anything to kill. It wasn't all that fun, but it was really realistic. Now it's less realistic and more fun." They were much more obviously present than the boars, though. I could see over the backs of boars. Elephants were taller than me. They probably weighed way less than the largest boars, though. Those things were tanks. How was this balanced, though? Boars were mean, but an elephant would squash one. It was a great power fantasy, but how did the level one players have the courage to kill elephants here?

Finally we hacked our way to the walls. They weren't the black of Zezhria, or even the gray marble of Melasia. These walls were made of tusks, bones, and leather. More like a temporary encampment than a city. Perfect. "You're unwelcome here." An orc grunted at me. Only two guards at the gate, one was the elitist red while the other was the normal grayish green. They were like bodybuilders that were a foot too tall. They had white tusks that pushed their lower lip out and made their excessively square jaw even more apparent. All in all, their faces were the boar version of a pug with downward-pointing noses. In non-human colors. The outcast orcs were human-toned, but they didn't really count. 

Glinting black eyes glowered at me. Intimidating, but ugly. I shifted into the two orc species and back again, gaining their racial bonuses. I grinned at him before I blasted him with a bolt of lightning and raised the corpse with one of the spells I'd been building since I'd used all of my raising spells in Melasia. It was always a good idea to have backup spells powering up as you did other stuff. The red-skinned zombie grew black Viking armor as the skin rotted a bit. Level two hundred. He immediately killed the other orc barring my way. I raised him too, but since I used it on both his corpse and the corpse of a nearby elephant they turned out level one ninety five. It was getting easier for me to assign the new pets to their job without actually giving orders. The undead orcs seemed to want to remain guards for Foothills despite their death. I raised a few more elephants to fill out my ranks.

"One of you bring me to whoever rules here, the rest of you guard the exits of the city. Give a warning before killing anyone who leaves, but don't hesitate after that. When I claim it, start gathering the garrison and everyone else to where I am. Bring the corpses of the unwilling." The level two hundred undead orc led me into town. As we marched toward the center of the city, I noticed players stopping to watch us pass. Or just to stare at my badass armor. Or to wonder at how a level two hundred undead orc could exist so early in the game. Whatever the reason was, we started getting a crowd following us. Not all of them were players.

"What's the meaning of this?' an old orc was sitting on a throne made of bones in the biggest leather building. It was closer to a carnival pavilion than a keep, in my opinion. Sure it was big, but it could be taken down and put back up in less than a day. Oddly, it would probably have the same defensive stats as a stone keep, though. "Who are you to barge in here?"

"I'm your new liege. Become my vassal and I won't kill you." The old orc sputtered for a second, then took a good look at the undead monster standing next to me. Then he glanced at the crowd of players and npcs behind me. None were over level one hundred. Few were over fifty. "That goes for every npc in town." Melasia had taught me something. Seeing the npcs swear to me en masse as they had, I realized that I didn't need to be present for them to become my vassals. I just needed a few Necromancers loyal to my cause to raise those that refused to swear obedience. I really needed to learn how to let my pets use magic. "How are you old, anyway? I thought npcs were immortal." probably shouldn't have given him time to answer a question, but it was fascinating. How could someone born less than a decade ago be legitimately old?

"I know, I know!" One player chirped from behind me. I turned to look at her and she flinched. I almost started laughing. "They age depending on how many kids they've had. I asked one and that's what she told me. They never get so old they die, but their hair turns white and they get all wrinkly after they've had a hundred kids." The orc player retreated as I didn't respond. I turned back to the old orc.

"Not quite, girl. We all die eventually. Only elves and heroes are truly immortal." He was gnawing on his lips. "If I refuse, you'll simply offer the same deal to my successor, won't you?" I nodded. This one was quick. "Why should I swear allegiance to an elf? Emperor or otherwise?"

"Because this elf will slaughter every single orc in this city until some chief does what I want. If you think your people can win, I'd love the challenge of slaughtering every single orc that follows you. Who knows, you might actually succeed." I laughed to make sure he knew I wasn't serious. The one undead orc warrior standing next to me could probably kill all the npcs in town by himself. The chief was the best fighter in town, and he was nowhere near as powerful as the undead at my disposal. Assuming he didn't own the keep. "Your choice, grandpa."

He dropped to his knees and became my vassal. The players gasped as the red skull appeared over Foothills. I gave him some undead to teach him skills and linked with him, teaching him a few Berserker skills. Orcs loved those ones, from the few I'd gotten to know in the beta. He gaped at me as he felt the power fill him. He was level one twenty five, a worthy foe. He might have been able to challenge me if he owned the keep, but it was too late. Vassals couldn't un-swear. That I knew of. Maybe they could…that would suck.

"Make sure your people make the same choice you did and I'll reward them as I did you." He let loose a roar of blood-lust that almost shook his approximation of a keep to the ground. I grabbed the undead orc by the horns of his helmet. "Make sure anyone who refuses the Chief's order dies. And make sure the bodies are collected for me to raise when I get around to it." The zombie nodded. "Good boy."

I left the building and the crowd flowed around me like water that was terrified to be within arms reach. I could already feel the npcs in the crowd becoming my vassals. My empire was growing more powerful every day. I laughed as I leapt from the crowd to the steps of the bank. It was the only stone building in town.

I rushed inside to the real estate room. This was another inhumanly skinny and cheery banker, but it was female this time. Did they only have the two builds? "I want to buy every building in Foothills. I'll use my personal account. Have a nice day." And I turned around and bolted for the maintenance room. This was a cheery male, but his skin was a darker shade of red. Almost burgundy. He was of the elitist species of orc. I'd never been able to remember their proper name. Blood…something. "I want this city's economy set up exactly the same as Melasia except for the road leading to the edge of the Darkwood and the domesticated animal changing from boars to elephants." What would elephant milk be like? He acquiesced with a wide grin and I left.

One down five to go. Lethe and Hell had caught up. They were being followed by a ravening swarm of players, desperate to get on their good side. "Let's get out of here, pronto!" Hell called. I nodded to the two skeletons behind me and they grabbed my two companions.

Now I had a choice to make. The two closest cities were both owned by pixies. Did I take them and then move on to the orcs, or did I take them on my way back north after taking the third southern pixy city that was at the south tip of the continent? Maybe I'd take one now and the other one on my way back. That sounded good. I'd do that. I calculated the distance to Talnyr and leapt. Since it wasn't as far, I added a bit of destruction script.

Scorpions were what I destroyed this time. Dog sized scorpions. I raised as many as I could while the surrounding monsters fell into my menagerie. I shifted my mass orders a bit to tell them to simply kill at a lower level than themselves instead of needing to specify a location. Adding locations as I found them would be annoying. The raised scorpions looked lethal. They were large enough to ride, but they couldn't be as heavy as the boars or elephants. They definitely had greater surface area than the boars, at least. Their carapace was rippling with ridges and barbs that looked deadly, and their tails swung through their own kind, ripping them to shreds that their mandibles greedily devoured. No worries about them being weaker than anything else.

"Dark Elf Emperor." A pixy without a host? I glanced at it, the foot tall little woman with shining black leather wings. "We've been expecting you. I am the leader of Talnyr." She bowed to me as she became my vassal without saying a word. Her class was an orb filled with wisps of darkness. Oracle. One of a very few classes that players couldn't learn. Apparently, npcs could learn them. "I would appreciate it if you refrained from turning all dissent into undead in Talnyr. I have bought the deeds of all real estate in Talnyr, and I now give them all to you." That was new. And suspicious. A pale human with veins of darkness digging through the area under her eyes nodded, accepting the contract. I saw the red skull appear over the distant city of Talnyr. The walls looked like they were made of some sort of crystal. The glow the walls gained from the sigil lighting them was awe-inspiring. I glanced at the human who'd approved the transfer and noticed a wide grin. Inhumanly wide. She'd brought a banker with her? Damn, she was prepared. I hadn't even known they could leave the bank. "Do you have any further instructions for my people?" I tried to teach her classes, but that didn't work. She was still just an npc. I started teaching her some spells as I considered what to do with her.

So the Oracle that ran Talnyr didn't want me in her city? That was odd, but since she'd given me everything I wanted, I didn't really care. But…I did want her abilities. Could I get the same bond with her that I had with Delfina? First, though, I switched to a human and a pixy before returning to my own race. I'd forgotten that pixy cities were full of their default hosts. They could inhabit any of the races, but they preferred humans. And the only starting race for pixy hosts was human. Now I just needed to remember how Delfina had become my familiar. Blood. Thank you human race bonus. I pulled out my two handed sword and dug the tip into the ground in front of my feet without letting go of my staff. "Mark your face to match me and swear again." She looked confused, but she obeyed. Pixy blood was a deep shade of purple. The mild species of pixy, sprites, bled green. Faeries had white blood. Though, seeing it was more interesting than most races as their hosts did the vast majority of their bleeding. Veins of different colored blood within the rest was an interesting mix. The feeling of having a familiar was slightly different from a vassal. It was like a triple vassal, or more. I could almost feel her and Delfina straining at the edges of their souls, desperately fighting to break into the realm of player. They were in their own tab, and I didn't doubt they'd graduate to player before long. "I want at least five vassals active in Talnyr at all times. And you must remain stronger than any player that calls Talnyr home. If I hear any rumors of active rebellion, Talnyr will burn." Was that all I wanted?

"As you command, Liege Lord." She bowed again. Oracles were weird. It seemed like the developers couldn't give the precognitive ability to someone normal without breaking some unknown rule. Or maybe Ryne knew that anyone with abilities related to the future actually were that way and overrode them. "Am I to assume I am being trusted with making sure the city runs correctly?"

"So long as your tax to Zezhria doesn't fall behind any of my other cities of similar size, it will remain that way. That includes material goods delivered to the edge of the Darkwood." I used a small pressure spell to kill off a thousand scorpions, then I used all of my animation spells to raise them again. I couldn't even tell they were dead. What did a normal scorpion look like at that level? None were under level one fifty. "That should be enough to keep an army from overrunning you. What's your name?"

"Shyndyn." She bowed again. It was really strange looking so far down at someone. Or if you were looking at someone so small you'd expect their proportions to be different. Nope. She was a miniature white elf with black hair and bat wings. "Visit anytime you wish. I do not come to greet you out of a desire to keep you from Talnyr, rather I believe you to prefer taking a city with minimum hassle. I have given you Talnyr with no hassle." She bowed again. Cool. I liked my little Oracle. The city was a paltry risk, compared to her, anyway. Since she was a familiar, I had no worries at all.

"So I guess that means we move on to the next orc city." Hell moved up behind Shyndyn. She didn't seem intimidated, but it was hard to read expressions on a face so small. "Which one was that?"

"Valley. Then Mountain, Dalynr, River, Ocean, Hill, Pynr, and then we go to the north half of the continent." I glanced down at the tiny pixy still standing between me and Hell with a helpful grin on her face. "What do you think of me taking over the whole world, little one?"

"If you take the world, then I am among the few trusted by the ruler of the entire world. It would be a great honor to serve the master of this world." She bowed again. Odd little pixy. Most of them would fight to the death before letting a non-pixy rule anything. Racism was a massive part of this game that she seemed to have completely defeated. "I can provide you with a map of the surrounding areas. The players of Talnyr were kind enough to provide me with it." She held out a player's map. I took it and looked at the surrounding area. The players hadn't discovered any towns. Wait…she called them players? Was that part of being an Oracle?

"Is there a map I could find somewhere that has all of the towns and established bases on it? As well as port pads?" If anyone knew, it would be an Oracle. As fun as leaping was, teleporting was faster. I could use a personal teleport spell, but that took a lot of mp and I couldn't use it to explore somewhere I'd never been.

"Most towns are all subservient to a city, so every bank should have a map of the surrounding towns. That doesn't work for rebel camps and bandit bases, I'm afraid. And port pads are a lost technology. They were forgotten long before the players arrived to wake them up again. Perhaps there is a map of their locations in the Great Library of Allstaria." She didn't stop her smile. Didn't that ever get annoying? She was almost as relentless in her cheer as a banker. "Was there anything else you wanted, Liege Lord?"

That was all really interesting, but "Nope." I set my course for Valley and leapt. That had been really weird. How had she gotten the players to do what she wanted? I checked her stats in my familiar menu and found that she was level two hundred twenty five. Damn. She must have started at that level, because there was no way anything could have leveled up that much since the launch. As an npc…she must be a different type of character. Regular city leaders were under level one hundred, let alone two. And Oracles were already hard to fight. They had a mixture of abilities ranging across all three class types. And hitting them was almost impossible. The most devastating battle I'd ever been in was when the whole beta came together to destroy an Oracle dragon. It had ripped every player and npc that attacked it to shreds. Eventually we beat it, but that's only because it had to survive continuous waves of players. We'd lured it close to a port pad, so it wasn't hard to go from the city we started in to the battle. It had taken two days in real-time to beat the thing down. Even then, the developers released a statement that we only won because they'd nerfed it.

Wait. She was two twenty five? Npcs maxed out at two hundred before Ryne changed it. After the launch. She'd managed to gain twenty five levels since Ryne changed the rules? She really was amazing. Maybe she'd killed a bunch of dragons. And managed to kill them by herself. That would be a feat. Oracles were dangerous, but dragons knew how to beat them; absolutely overwhelming firepower.

The question of Shyndyn consumed me until I realized that I'd forgotten to add the distance right. I could see Valley clearly…but I was still in the air. Had I over-shot? Nope. I just hadn't remembered to change the distance from directly to the city to one hundred meters short of the walls. I crashed through a house, ripping through the thatch roofing like it wasn't even there. My landing was amid splinters of wood. As I glanced around I realized that I'd destroyed a kitchen table. Four orcs surrounded me, dining utensils in their hands. Whoops. "Where's the Chief?"

The orcs pointed without speaking. They screamed when the two skeletons touched down with Lethe and Hell in tow. "Great calculations, man. This is much easier than last time. We missed all the monsters, so we don't have to wade through the gore of our landing." Hell laughed boisterously. He really did have a cacophonous laugh. He should have chosen to be an orc, his personality fit better. Well…he wouldn't have been in my guild if he made that choice. Guess he did make the correct one. The orcs cowering into the corner might have disagreed, but I thought Hell was more of an orc than an elf, regardless of whether he made the right choice or not.

I walked in the direction they'd pointed. Right through the wall. When I owned it, they'd build a better house. Actual houses. Not huts made of mud and straw. Hopefully. I wasn't sure what "improvements" meant when it came to city management.

The "keep" was different this time. The building itself was the same, but it had an army of players surrounding it. All of them were level eighty or more. How did they manage to level up so fast? None were player-killers, so I doubted they had the gear to kill monsters over their level at a rate high enough to be so effective. Maybe they had figured out the pet trick, but then they'd have an army of pets to put between me and them. Maybe there was another method I wasn't thinking of. "You can't have Valley." One of them growled at me. Crusader. Of course it was a Crusader. "We will not bow to an elf. Definitely not a player-killer."

So my cursor was still pink. Oh well. "So what's your plan? You going to fight me off? With this ragged gang?" none of them had better than a rare item. Except the Mercenary chick next to him. She had a full set of legendary gear. And it matched. That was odd.

"We killed a dragon. We can kill you." So that's how they'd done it. They'd found a weak little dragon and killed it together. Even a level one uber-monster gave off boat-loads of exp when you killed it. And it had probably had the legendary set in the hoard. How the Mercenary got it all was proof that she was worth the time to recruit instead of kill. Even if all she did was deal the final blow.

"You, Mercenary." I pointed to the girl wearing the legendary gear. She glanced from side to side, nervous. "My guild is small, but I'm willing to let the worthy join. What do you say?" I cast a silence spell on the Crusader that tried to talk. "Shut up, the grown ups are speaking."

"Why should I join you? I've got a bigger guild with more power than you." Her voice was weak, though. She could see that my gear was not weak. My gear's true power was hidden, but it was obviously incredible. Her bug-like armor was weak in comparison. My helm gave me vision that could see shielding, so I knew her eye slits and joints were open to attack. Otherwise, I'd have thought it was a unique set. It may be low tier, but it was still legendary.

She needed a demonstration. She knew I was more powerful than her, but she thought all the weaklings behind her could make up the difference. "You have a guild of weaklings feeding off of your power. In my guild you would be among equals. Or betters." I slammed my staff to the ground. The fire gave a flashy way to hide what I was doing as I started building two-ring fireballs as fast as I could. My mp dropped to zero as the flames cleared, but I had over two thousand fireballs aligned in a wall of destruction pointed at her guild. "Will you join, or shall I destroy this town so I can rebuild from the ashes? Who knows, your little guild might be able to kill me. But imagine what power you could hold as a member of the guild that has already taken multiple cities. All you need to do is drop those uncommon weapons and stand aside as I rid this city of the pestilence that dares resist me." She glanced from my wall of spells that continued to grow as I built it greater to the horde of passable players she'd aligned herself with. She dropped her weapons and bolted out of the way.

The other members of the guild roared as they rushed forward. They'd given me too much time. I activated the wall of destruction and watched as thousands upon thousands of fireballs ripped into their ranks. They should have had npcs in front to absorb the damage. They were all players. And from the fact that their bodies didn't vanish, I guessed that they hadn't bought the keep or temple. Fire ripped through their uncommon armor like it wasn't there.

"When you do stuff like this, it makes me feel useless." Hell growled. He was probably rethinking his stance on not asking for more mage classes. He hadn't seen what I could do with melee abilities, though. Mages could kill larger numbers more quickly, but fighting equals was much faster as a melee fighter.

The smoke cleared to show a dozen Crusaders still charging at me. I used one of the stronger Conjurer spells and covered the ground at their feet with grasping undead hands. They stopped dead, toppled forward, and were held down by the spell. It would wear off about the same time as their invincibility timer ran out. It was an annoying ability when you had to fight them, but I'd never liked the invincibility timer. Even as a Crusader, it made me want to wait around for it to reset before I got into any big battle.

"You killed them all." It was Mercenary. She'd come out from between a pair of buildings. "Just like that. They're all dead. We never stood a chance. I would have been fighting you alone. All three of you."

"I meant what I said. You can join my guild. I will warn you, though. The only way out of my guild is with an occupied body bag. Some of the things I do tend to offend people, so it's not for everyone." probably should have given Blitz that much of a warning. "Still want in, or would you rather go your separate way?" she paused, taking my warning seriously. I hoped. I didn't want to have to kill her like I had Blitz. Everybody I killed that Hell had gotten to like would make him less likely to follow me. I needed a core of loyalty, and Hell made up half of it at the moment. His loss wouldn't matter so much after a while, but it would be a major hit to my power right now. I liked my chances, though. She was a red orc, so she wasn't necessarily bound to being a good guy. Blitz had been a Dark Elf, though, so it was an imperfect measure.

"What kind of offensive things do you tend to do?" so she was taking it seriously. Good. I hated people who never asked questions until they were already committed.

"Like killing any player that resists me. Permanently. Like enslaving cities or exterminating them on a whim. Like torturing people if the need arises. Npcs, players, monsters, nothing makes a difference. I already had to kill one Black Hole Knight because he didn't like how I work. I had to torture him first, just to get back the stuff I'd given him. I also have knowledge that I don't want getting out. If other people figure it out on their own, I'll deal with it, but I won't allow anyone outside of my guild to hear it from within my guild. My plan is to run everything, which means my guild will be running the world someday. That means everything from armies to spies to agriculture to crafting. Killing will be required of you, eventually. Torture will be required of you, eventually. I'm only ever going to have a thousand Black Hole Knights, so each one will be unstoppable. If that's all good, then join up. If not, get out of my way." I wasn't being totally honest. I'd build a massive guild, but there would be tiers. I'd only ever have a thousand commanders. And one lieutenant. Who knew how many Black Hole Knights there would be by the time I took over the world?

"Where do I sign?" Mercenary sounded happy. Good. I liked it when people didn't chafe under my rules. I handed her a guild sigil along with the unique sword and shield I'd gotten from Melasia. Being generous to allies was always a bonus. I glanced through her cursor and found her name; Jennifer. Had she used her human name? Weird. 

Then I taught her to be a Shifter, Necromancer, Shadow, and the rest of the melee classes. She dropped to her knees. I gave her a hundred elephants and a panther, just to make sure she knew I was powerful. If I gave away monsters like that, it meant I had a ton more. It may take her a bit before she was ready to appreciate it, as right now she was screaming and crying, but she'd know I was benevolent afterwards.

Then I noticed an ability aiming straight for me. I glanced around and didn't see the culprit. I glanced up and saw flapping robes before the player smashed into me.