The Raid Pt1

[Clan: Star Chasers has been removed from the Lost Divinity Raid Territory]

I did not even have to do anything after finishing the close-quarter elites. Cweeper and Hermes simply hammered away at the defending remnants of the camp and by the time I once again strolled over even in my hulk form the clan had been wiped. I was honestly a little disappointed because I did not get to face any super powerful magic characters.

Now that the camp was cleared away I could see more clearly see the neighboring camps who had been oddly quiet. I had expected them to send help in the event that they were allying together but help never came. Instead, two large groups of rank and file formations were gathered at either of the two neighboring camps but these groups of a hundred apiece never moved forward.

I could tell from the state of the ground ahead of these groups that they had once marched forward for a few dozen yards but were now all but seated by beside their own camps as if waiting for their turns. However, since they had wisely chosen to stay out of this fight I had no reason to trouble them. Unless, of course, they crossed the bottom line set by my alliance.

For a brief moment I was reminded of my early gaming experiences and how I had always been late to most games and thus was always one of the little guys. Even with my current abilities I doubted I could really stand a chance against someone a hundred levels above me. All the way up until Duality Resistance in monochrome, I was the person who had to follow the rules set by others.

Now, I was the guy enforcing the rules and pissing off the world because I was stronger and might equaled right in games like this. I felt bad, thinking about all of the injustices that I myself had suffered through. Including the loss of my first character in monochrome, shit really does happen to the little guys.

[Are you unsatisfied?]

Shaking my head as I revert back to my normal body, I say. "I knew things would be different this time around. I knew I would be strong because I'm always a capable fighter but I never knew… I really would be a bully. Honestly, I kind of promised myself that if I became one of the top players or groups in this game I would work to make the game a better place for the little guys. But… isn't this clan a little guy, now?"

[And here I admired you for being cold blooded and ruthless. Only, it turns out that you are just a big teddy bear]

"I don't want to be a bad person," I grumble tiredly, feeling like I would not get anywhere by talking to this artificial goddess. So, I simply poof out into a storm of spores and set about cleaning the field.

The rest of the day passed uneventfully after I returned to camp, I simply sat around being lazy at level eighty-three while going through a long list of achievements, perks, and titles that I had acquired from wiping Star Chasers. The others in my party did pretty much the same. We had already processed, traded, and used up most of our stock of resources and thus had nothing to fill our time with.

They lurked about the forums through their Social pages and kept me up-to-date with all of the posts and rumors about what happened today. The entire Star Chaser clan and several other 'unknown' groups were trying to rally the player base to complain about and report me for my powers and the abuse thereof.

Surprisingly, there were a long line of players and groups who stood up and argued in my favor. The leading supporters being Thirteenth Incorporated and Duality Resistance. Behind them were a small army of lesser clans and regular players who outright condemned the groups I had offended.

Not because they were in the right or wrong but because they had ended up on the supporting side of Fallen Monochrome.

The fighting between keyboard warriors lasted for several hours before my new enemies realized the position they found themselves in and just decided to move on with their lives. If not for the monochrome clan they could have been seen as the side of justice but simply because monochrome had created so much drama about me on the forums they were seen as villains.

It was honestly kind of amusing and helped me feel a little less bad about what I did even though the Star Chasers group probably was in the right while I was wrong.

As well, numerous players with powers not entirely different from mine came forward to complain about this unjust treatment of 'some guy who got luckier than you'. Our abilities were designed in the game and were not one-of-a-kind. Anyone could learn how to communicate with animals in this game and use it to summon a temporary army of beast type mobs, for example.

I was actually surprised by some of the powers and people that revealed themselves as if rallying for a call to arms. There were things I had never even thought of, such as warriors and mages who could completely infuse themselves with elemental mana to become pure elemental avatars. These were some of the guys I would have trouble fighting.

Once the novelty of the event wore off, though, everything quieted down on the forums with only some sharing of short clips and videos. Luckily, thanks to a combination of sponsors and regulations set up based around making money for both the game and the companies that tied themselves to it, clearing the clan was counted as my accomplishment and property so the only thing the players actually had rights to were their own deaths. No video of me in my hulk form lasted longer than ten seconds and only a handful of people actually had the presence of mind to record their gameplay at the time.

Sure, this revealed things like my hulk form and the ultimate attack of my familiars, but there was no other information available so things like restrictions, cooldown, and cast times were nothing more than speculation.

That evening, though, the leaders of Thirteenth and Duality came by for another picnic to celebrate our unrivaled control of the territory by watching the event from the eyes of the sentries who watched everything from the back of a plague dragon. While such videos could not go public and sharing them outside the game risked minor leveling penalties or even negative titles, the only real punishment would have been to make them public or make money from them.

That night we decided that we should go ahead and complete the raid rather than continue making trouble for ourselves by giving the other clans a chance to cross the bottom line. Mostly because I said so on the ground that I had already made myself public enemy number one and it would be somebody else' turn to handle a rebellious group. For Duality or Thirteenth, this would mean they would start making losses and a corporate clan like Thirteenth was not interest in losses.

So, after Little Thirteen sent out messages to the other clans still residing in the territory he and Donna led their groups back to their own camps. My group had already loaded the clan store with a decent stockpile of troll skills, accessories, and general equipment loot so I was not worried about missing out on more. Everybody in the party had even learned one of each troll skill in order to help make up for their lack of actual class skills.

The next morning I set to work with the last of my materials to make a large order of Signature Sandwiches to help our allied clans complete the raid with as few problems as possible. As planned, Little Thirteen and Donna arrived before the first round of sandwiches were even done baking. Surprisingly, though, Mistress also arrived not much later with her team of uniformed elites.

Luckily, they did not arrive empty handed and brought along an assortment of crates and chests containing the materials, suits, and recipes that we had agreed to exchange for. I myself was unaware of how this raid territory actually worked when it came to facing the boss, or if there was a boss in this first of two parts, but I could not help but agree with Mistress that it would be simpler to just carry them across the finish line at the same time as us in case we could not bring them in later.

A few of the others were not exactly pleased with this, mostly Donna who complained about dead weight dragging us down. Considering who was doing the carrying, me, I simply stated it was for me to worry about since it would not affect their own work. Then again, from the way Mr. Thirteen kept giving me looks I could tell it was not JUST about dead weight.

Mistress herself was probably the issue. A very attractive and exotic raced player literally spent all her time in the camp following me around and asking questions like a young fan girl. There were even times when she would hang onto my arm with provocative placement while pouting about being told to mind their own business.

In the end, I was able to distract everybody by taking out the original mobile fortress suit for the others to appraise and study. The suit had been made legendary by the gods because it was supposed to act as inspiration but nobody would be inspired by it while in the clan shop. However, I did not want the entire game to have such inspiration.

After half an hour of breakfast and speculation about the uncertain finish line of the first half of this territory raid, I had no choice but to usher the other two clans back to their own camps while telling Donna to go ahead and take our second place position.

This was somewhat my way of making it up to her for bringing along 'dead weight' because they would have ended up finishing ahead of her own clan because of me. In this way, less toes were being stepped on and I could earn some brownie points with the preferential treatment.

Luckily for everybody involved in the raid, it would not be until early evening after the other three clans had used their raid attempts that we would complete our lanes.

My teams spent the day talking shop about crafting with the present members of the eighth ranked craftsmen guild of our server-slash-continent. Mistress and Oleander in particular spent the day living and breathing alchemy while discussing the interactions of elements and herbs in alchemy to dissect the inner workings of the game. Most of what they said was actually beyond my comprehension and bordered on real chemistry as they basically worked out their own periodic table.

Everybody else mostly just sat around making and enjoying food while sharing small personal recipes my team had come up with on their own. I personally spent most of this time hovering from one cluster of people to another monitoring the exchanges and taking in all of the information I could. There were more things I did not know than what I did but I was slowly filling in the blanks.

The most important thing I learned was the process for making different kinds of paper from different materials as well as how to treat them with resins and lacquers to help make them into armored plates. I did not let anyone reveal the extent of our crafting abilities by actually making anything new and impressive. It was better to let this other clan just believe we were better craftsmen than to let them know we were just buffed as hell at crafting.

Finally, though, we received word from the Thirteenth and Duality that the other clans had finished their raid farming and that they would start using their own attempts. The initial plan for securing our top three positions was to just wait ten minutes between each clan's entry. Melpomene had long since assured me that once the first lane was cleared the other lanes would close as long as nobody was in them and thus we had to make sure everybody was active before anybody finished.

Mistress was less that happy about how this was planned out. Being one of the little guys, now, she was worried that Thirteenth would just rush for the gold to keep everybody else out of the finish line. Honestly, had it been anybody besides Little Thirteen who we made this deal with I would not have trusted them and made sure we all entered at the same times.

However, Mr. Thirteen had proven himself reliable in the past and I had proven that Tragedy's Travelers was not a clan one wanted to be enemies with.

*