'Looking Lonely And Pitiful'

"What… what's happening," QTPi asks after several seconds of reassessing her surroundings, realizing that she was probably not going anywhere any time soon.

"I'm giving you a choice," I reply in an almost reassuring manner, reaching out to begin lightly and carefully plucking the cordycep webbing away from her head, face, and shoulders. "You can either feed me ten percent of your experience and go back down the road to ruin following your old leadership seeking revenge… or you can come with me."

"Where are we going?" She asks worriedly, looking around at the mixed gender and race group of people surrounding her.

"Nowhere right now, I just meant that figuratively," I say to actually reassure her after the borderline creepy vibes I was intentionally giving off. "If you leave your clan and join mine, the offer still stands. All I will need you to do for the time being is babysit these guys and teach them basic combat skills. I have an important date in a couple hours so I can only take you to the training ground and give them a set of drills to practice on their own."

"What about after that?" She asks with slightly narrowed eyes from suspicion. Then she blatantly asks, "Are you single?"

"Yes but not interested," I say flatly before simply degrading the cordycep silk on her person with my perception so that it crumbled away from her. "Yes or no, you're still coming with me. What will it be?"

"It might as well be well," she replies with a yawn, giving up all pretenses and relaxing as she familiarizes herself with the public information above the heads of the noobs who had already joined Tragedy's Travelers. "Alright, let's get this over with. Do I need to teach them my skills?"

"No," I reply simply while turning to walk away from the smithy entirely without looking back. "After they have learned whatever basic sword skills they do not already have, take them hunting out to the Elder Oak to work on their skill levels. Do not actually do the challenge yet, I want them to make personal achievements by completing it in their first runs."

After that I simply told her to keep an eye on their fighting styles while hunting while considering what kind of skills they should develop. If they were people like my siblings who I would raise with more intensity, all of their skills would be acquired through combat only. These guys would spend at least half of their game lives in a workshop if I had anything to do with it so it did not matter.

Just that extra edge on others from basic combat achievements would be all they need to prepare for the plains regions and then dungeon running.

If I played my cards right, not only could I claim a chunk of their dungeon loot for the clan but I can also work its contribution points into the pyramid scheme. All the higher leveled players would already do whatever dungeons they could at this point. The Elder Oak which was safely close to Sierra only afforded a few thousand points by my estimate.

The imp dungeon in the fork of the river was too remote to access during these times, but even then it would still only ever be a level twenty to thirty dungeon. The sepulcher was a level fifty dungeon with levels in the sixties in Difficult mode. With how many people overall were using the Elder Oak Challenge, one team would be lucky to run the challenge once.

In a private dungeon setting, they could use up all of their dungeon runs as fast as they could complete the dungeon. Which was one of the reasons why I wanted to be there whenever the noobs did their Elder Oak run. If they ran the challenge under normal circumstances, they would not really achieve all that much.

If redcaps came pouring out every other wave, they would make better gains, and even after that I could probably allow them to run multiple times in a row with my connections. Hunting for a day might get them a level, but a couple successful runs of the Elder Oak would certainly get them to thirty in a day.

None of the others really had much to say and just paid attention while I explained my personal experiences of the various mobs and the basic attacks they would be turning into skills and Swordsmanship in the future. Even if they were going to be heavy crafting characters, they were going to be a part of my clan and would count as some of its firepower.

A clansman that could not fight was a useless clansman no matter how good a sword they could hammer out. If I needed to use them on the front lines as cannon fodder, they needed a base value of two-for-one lives on the field. If they could kill two people apiece in large-scale combat then the rest of the clan could handle the rest in most cases!

By the time we reached the Delai family property, most of my party were all lounging about the gardens areas while Lana, the old lady, and some company were discussing the grounds.

I did not take QTPi and the noobs all the way to the clan's main tie to the city but brought them somewhere a couple hundred feet off to the side of the area. Then I showed them how to perform the four basic sword skills of chop, slash, thrust, and parrying for several different combined sets.

The varying combination of motions would help them work on their physical stats a bit more than their night of crafting while also setting a better foundation for their attack skill proficiencies. If they could perform a thousand of each attack in this fashion of mock-parrying and retaliation, they skills should come up with effect equal to a starting swordsman class.

When they finally got the hang of sixteen variations after twenty minutes of show-and-tell, I finally left them alone under QTPi's instruction while making my way over to the gardens. I simply smiled and waved to Lana while walking by before making my way to where Go, Merch, and Oleander were playing cards at a bench table. On the opposite side of the stage and entertainment area was Papi looking lonely and pitiful.

Everybody else were scattered about the other areas but I was not worried about any of them at the moment. "Merch, I ran into some trouble. There's a clan called Marketplace and maybe two other clans running rackets buying out public stock and overcharging to players and NPC."

"We've done that before, though," Go says while giving me an incredulous look. "What are they doing that we didn't?"

"They're poaching and coercing noobs and low leveled players into sweatshop work for free," I reply with a sorrowful shake of my head. "It's downright shameful and that lady over there was the poster girl they were using for it. She even tried to murder me in cold blood while making it look like a public duel gone wrong. Absolutely shameful."

"Find Marketplace, find their companions, find their backing, got it," Merch replies briefly before simply dropping his hand of cards on the table between the others and opening his menus. He was probably running to Social to look up the offending clan and then find members he can get not-so-public information from.

"Anything you need us to do?" Go asks while looking at the discarded hand on the table.

"Keep an eye on that psycho chick babysitting the noobs," I reply with a shrug, checking the time by looking up at the sun. I did not have enough time to put my character to sleep, but at this point I did not even need sleep anymore. "Later, though, I would love it if Oleander could organize a twenty-plus group of players between level thirty and fifty taking a short vacation outside the region."

"Are we setting that in motion?" Oleander asks as if to remind me that this was only the second day we had been here.

"No, they're some craftsmen I recruited and I am going to spend a few in-game days sending them to the sepulcher, let them run it for a day, and then bringing them back to get them all over level fifty. They'll camp at the edge of the forestry til further notice for that, though."

"We already have a few teams ready and you gave the golem a three-day deadline before people would would be on their way," Go points out while Oleander plays her hand and trumps his pairs, forcing him to shuffle and deal. "How long do you think it will take us?"

"I'm going to visit the baron and talk about just that today," I sigh tiredly, looking straight up to check the distance between the sun and the top of the sky. "With luck, we'll be able to send everybody we need to on the road… tomorrow? Half will be the village garrison, some will be the craftsman going to do dungeon runs, and the rest will be a lodge garrison waiting for the outlaws to make their move."

"So we stay in time with the original plan?" Oleander asks while watching her new hand of cards sliding across the smooth stone table toward her. "You need sleep, Hack."

"I actually needed to log out but thanks to the baron I now need to push my penalty limit," I sigh tiredly, finally taking a seat with them when I hear Lana's voice and others approaching. "Deal me in, I need to stay awake."

Crack!

Like lightning in my ears, I suddenly received a shard slap across the face from the side carrying a shocking amount of Agility and Strength. Three percent of my appearing HP suddenly disappeared. Putting her hand back on her cards as Go finishes dealing me a hand, Oleander says, "Sorry there's no sugar in the coffee this morning."

I should have known better but I was still completely blindsided by the slap. I had not even seen it coming, showing how distracted I was. Even if I had seen it coming, I would have probably still been hit but maybe not as solidly.

"Lil!" I call out sharply, wanting somebody who could slap a lady at the drop of a hat until I remembered more recent events. Openly turning my head toward his distant table, I flash a cheerful smile at Papi while adding, "I need some sugar for my coffee!"

Actually carrying sugar and even some alchemy candy I had no idea still existed, Lil hurries over in confusion and then looks around at the table in bewilderment. "I thought you needed sugar," she says blankly, not understanding at all what was taking place.

I simply pointed to the side of my face that had once been covered by a half-dryad's hand and say with a wink, "Oleander gave me coffee with no sugar to help me stay awake."

As was usual, Lil's eyes went toward Oleander with a murderous gleam because of their history of these kinds of antics, but after my wink she suddenly glanced toward her dad's table where the man was watching us with fury burning in his gaze. Then she smiled brightly, leaned forward, and kissed the cheek that had just been slapped.

Did I just NTR this man using his own daughter? Yes! Why would I strip somebody of their dignity and manhood in such a way? He ruined my quest!

"Is that sweet enough for you?" She asks happily, only too willing to help rub it in.

"Now I have a toothache," I pout obviously, briefly enjoying her laugh at my cheesy line before going back to whatever she had originally been doing.

Having been standing only a few feet away this entire time, Lana simply clears her throat after Lil starts walking away. She could clearly see both of us regarding the figure I had introduced as her father who was silently seething in the distance, so she understood what this was about.

However, the look on her face was sickly sweet to an unpleasant point as she asks, "Finished having fun?" I could only silently nod my head a few slow times as realization dawned on me. Backlash from the storms I had been brewing were starting to come in.

"Good," she replies, sitting next to me and picking up the cards I had been ignoring thus far while the others continued the game around my antics. Placing all but one down on the table, she shows the ace in her hand before asking me, "This is a fun game, I learned how to play last night. I also got to spend a lot of time with your friends talking and learned about everything you've been up to!"

"Have I cheated?" I ask intentionally to shock and distract the young and potentially inexperienced lady, looking to Go and Oleander in confusion. However, instead of jumping into the conversation to take up space, go simply shrugs and Oleander says the worst thing ever.

"Not with me."

WHAT THE HELL DOES THAT MEAN?! I could clearly see the same thoughts on Lana's face as she glares daggers into my soul, so I quickly said, "No, sorry, never happened and never thought of it. Shutting up."

"Who is-" Oleander starts to ask, only to be silenced with a kick from under the table. From Go's booted size sixteen half-orc foot. There were tears in her eyes and she even dropped about five percent of her HP when it appeared.

There was no way to be subtle in a game like this. Closing her eyes while picking up her cards and simply pretending that things had never taken place at all, Lana looks at the cards in her hand and says, "Anyway, what exactly do you have planned to do at the capital, now?"

Realizing that somebody had probably been drunk to stay awake and blabbed about our actual plans and some of my racial aspects, I slowly nod once again as she drops a hand holding two aces and nothing else of note. She lost the round but Go continued shuffling and dealing in her place as I said, "Establish a connection with the emperor and empire.

"Yours truly is an unofficial emperor himself," I explain briefly, much to the scoffing shock of the old lady and plain coughing from MR. Harlow. "If I can be recognized as a lesser emperor tied to the mortal emperor, then my species is safe to flourish and I can directly control a small portion of it. If not… then the world itself will potentially force me into an imperial rebellion in order to snuff me out. At which point, I WILL fight to survive."

"Because I am supported by the head of the neutral pantheon and have paid respects to other figures, which I am still technically in the process of doing, my chances of success are actually good," I go on to explain calmly despite the sudden drama written on the faces of the old lady and Mr. Harlow behind Lana. "Today, Sir Beryl has arranged a meeting and method for paying my respects to the baron who will then pave the way for my to pay my respects up the chain of command to the emperor's doorstep."

Even after I explained the optimal success route, nobody's faces really changed all that much and Lana simply looked at her new hand of cards. "You're also plan B to that effect, after having received the Aegis. As long as I had the Aegis, I had an assured imperial subordinate position which would have acted as my in-name allegiance to the empire. With you as my subordinate… I either have equal footing to the emperor… or a hostage."

*