Book 3, Chapter 8

8. Portal Facility

The arrival of Daemon and his small horde of workers was fortunate, both in its timing, and in its ability to expand my goals.  I had accomplished everything I thought that I could accomplish with the throne in Thorn March.  Tarisha would recover my throne in North Shire from the dungeon in which it had been enshrined, and then it would be time to act for real.

Or, at least, that’s as far as the Traveler’s perspective was concerned.  I wasn’t a Traveler.  They called me a NPC, but I had decided that that term, at least for when used to describe me, meant “Native Player Character.”  This was my world, and I couldn’t just log out of it like the travelers could.  Which meant that I needed to prepare for the political ramifications and the possible fallout of failure.

I gave my workers over to the Native head of the household and had them put to work while I returned to my office with Daemon.  He immediately opened a trade window with me and transferred twelve million gold.

“I had access to your vanity pet collection while you were on Earth,” he explained.  “I haven’t sold more than a tenth of it yet.  I’m trickling them out for maximum profit, and I have a few expenses for you to approve.  But we’ll overcome the debt issue in North Shire based on your vanity pets alone.  I’m quite certain of it,” Daemon said smugly.

“That’s great, Daemon,” I said.  “But we’re not paying back a copper until I’ve talked to the judge who issued the decree saying that the banks couldn’t claim tax revenue towards the debt.”

Daemon stiffened slightly, and I looked at him accusingly.

“Have you been making payments while I was gone?” I asked.

He looked sheepish.  It’s strange to see a sheepish looking person who has a handlebar mustache.  “Please forgive me, Hail.  I know you said to freeze the accounts, but, well, servicing the bank loans just seemed like my fiduciary duty.  It was only about twenty thousand gold off of the sum that I just transferred you, after all.”

“Was that before or after now?” I questioned, and the man looked stupefied at the question, so I realized I needed to clarify.  “Check the canon date, Daemon, and try to remember if you began repaying the banks before or after it.  Although either way, that gold is probably lost to time.  But the answer to my question may be important.”

“I’ll check with Benarth to get the date,” he promised, then he pulled a ledger from his inventory.  “I won’t have to rely on my memory; I know exactly what I’ve done with every copper I’ve spent on your behalf.  Would you like to go over the details?”

“Perhaps when we have more time,” I said, and to my surprise I wasn’t dreading it.  Daemon seemed to have been taking the responsibilities I had heaped on him very seriously, the least I could do was let him make his report.  In fact, I was kind of looking forward to spending time with the old man.  “Daemon, you have a daughter, don’t you?  How is she doing?”

Daemon reacted with surprise to my words, then his face broke into a grin.  “She lives with her mother, so I don’t get to see her as often as I’d like, but I’m damn proud of her.  She’s an honor student, like I was at that age, and she’s not too old to come to her old man for advice.  I think that will change once she starts needing advice about boys, but we’re not at that stage quite yet.”

“Being my steward doesn’t take time away from you being a father, does it?” I inquired.

“Not at all.  I would have quit if it did, Hail.  No offense, but you are second on my list of priorities, and the first is several ladder rungs above you,” Daemon explained.

I nodded.  “Good.  Family is important.  Does she come to this world?”

“She’s made some noise about saving up for a helmet, but hasn’t put forward the effort yet.  If she gets serious about it, I’ll meet her halfway with the cost and try to give her a good start in the game,” Daemon explained.

“If she ever does come, let me know, and I’ll try to line up some quests just for her,” I promised.  “Well, the system will probably use them for everyone after she’s done with them, but she’ll be the first one I issue them to.”

We discussed his daughter for a while longer, before Daemon returned his focus toward the matters at hand.  “Hail, I have several ideas on how to spend the gold I just gave you.  I couldhave made those decisions myself while you were on earth, but chose to hold onto it until you arrived.”

“That’s good, because if you would have invested in any infrastructure, the gold might have been lost,” I answered.  “I’m not exactly certain how the recursion is going to work.  We might get refunded for efforts like that, or we might not.  I see you managed to bring Randal with the servants?  Would you ask him if he can begin designing forts and siege equipment to be built in North Shire?  We’re going to face a series of battles soon, and we need to start getting prepared.”

“What will you be doing?” Daemon inquired.

“Generating quests and quest items for the loyal friends you have brought me, of course,” I said, pulling from my inventory a stack of blank paper, a bottle of blue ink, and a quill.  With a wave of my hand, I [Enchanted Parchment and Ink], and, sitting at a desk, began to go to work.

Daemon nodded, and even seemed excited.  “I’ll let others know.  It will raise morale to know that you’ll have something for them to do soon.”

He placed a sheet of paper on my desk for me to reference.  It listed the Travelers who had accompanied him, their classes and their skills.  To my surprise, a fair number were listed as having reputation with The Beggar Court.  I was uncertain how that collection of ruined and penniless nobility viewed me, but perhaps it was time to find out.  Especially since I was likely going to be forced to drag the late Lord Mooncrest’s name through the dirt in order to accomplish my goals.

With my resources laid out in front of me, I quickly got to work putting my [Scribing] skill through its paces.  Winning the day would take more than strength of arms, and if my early teachers in Zhesa castle had ever managed to teach me anything useful, it was that of the pen and the sword, the pen was the mightier weapon.

I leveled [Scribe] all the way to level 10, [Scribe: Copy Document] to level 5, and [Scribe: Forge Document] to level 4.

Throughout the process, I periodically asked Daemon questions about what had happened in the timeline that had produced The Near Future.  I’d had similar discussions with Tarisha and Laurant, but Daemon had a significantly different perspective, and I found that he was able to fill in key details or correct gaps in my knowledge which required me to shift my strategy considerably.

Once I had run out of documents to write, I returned to my throne, where I was notified that several new quest items had been generated and were waiting for assignment to Travelers, as well as giving me the ability to tweak the actual parameters of the quests themselves.  Pleased that the system was working as I’d envisioned, I returned to work.

Occasionally I was forced to scrap a document and re-scribe it from the beginning to create the conditions I wanted, but mostly any modification to the quests could be made through the throne itself.

Finally satisfied with my plans, I opened another menu which I had explored but never been able to do much with due to a lack of resources.

[Regional Management: North March].

After a moment, I found the option I was looking for, and I spent ten of the twelve million gold that Daemon had just given me on a single purpose which would take twenty-four game hours to create itself.

You have selected to create a dual-direction Portal Facility in Thorn March of The Recent Past!

This action will carry over into The Near Future!

This beacon is capable of connecting with any similar beacon located within Yuikon, Eolstree, Verindale, Aeridia, Caeloria, Valorica, Wynthorne, Zenitha, Crescentis, Kordock, and Hormonica

Cost: 10,000,000 gold

Outgoing portal cost 15 gold

Incoming portal cost: 3 gold

Toll paid to beacon owner on use: 3 gold

Confirm the creation of this beacon?

Yes

No

I was slightly surprised at just how far this portal would be able to reach.  Every nation in the Heartlands was listed!  I had a moment of hesitation, as not all of the nations listed were friendly with the nation of Yuikon.  However, I was ultimately planning for the future, and the ability to travel anywhere from my base of power was vital to my future development.  I selected [Yes], and the gold was taken from my inventory.

An Action of Note has occurred within The Recent Past!

This will resonate with The Near Future!

The addition of Briarton to the portal network will occur in 24hrs game time in The Recent Past, 78hrs game time in The Near Future.

Travel from The Near Future to The Recent Past will be possible at this beacon.

With the creation of a new portal to the network, All Portal Beacons have stabilized within The Recent Past.

Would you like to configure the Briarton Portal Beacon now?

Yes

No

I frowned.  I hadn’t realized that, by creating a portal node, I would be giving travelers a way into the past.  I had seventy eight hours before a possible horde of helpful idiots or malicious opponents arrived, and I knew it was too late to take that action back.  Not without permanently destroying the beacon and losing the ten million gold I had already spent.

Resisting the urge to panic, I went into the beacon configuration menu, and found a possible solution.  While I was able to connect to any beacon in the heartlands in theory, a large number of the connections were already being listed as ‘closed’ by the Native operators on the other end.  I was already completely sealed off from the nation of Kordock, for example.  And Caeloria was closing all but the portal to their embassy to me.  One by one many connections were made unavailable, and I realized that I could do the same thing from my end.

I promptly limited the connections to three.  Zhesa City, the Ebbyvale receiving platform, and Prowlhaven.  Those were the only connections to which this new beacon would be able to transport anybody until I changed the settings back.  This would create a bit of a bottleneck for Travelers in the future to get to my lands, but it would be a very simple matter to get from Briarton to virtually anywhere in the Heartlands simply by portaling to either of the capital cities which to which I had left open access, and then teleporting again to their final destination.

Satisfied with my actions, I decided to take a break.  I pulled up the messaging system that I shared with Tarisha and my active guards, as I was curious how they were doing.

Hail

Hello Tarisha.  How is everything going on your quest to reclaim my throne for North Shire?

Tarisha

…

Joon-Ho

Forgive her, Hail-san, she is very occupied at the moment in battle.  You may not have been keeping up to date on our progress until now, but the challenge is greater than we were expecting.  I am not one of the players who is challenging the dungeon, but they have informed me that the dungeon has scaled itself up to match them, with level 180 enemies.  And they expect another elite to challenge them when they try to claim the throne, although that is yet to be confirmed.

Hail

Oh.  Wow, I didn’t realize it would be so difficult for them.  I’m sorry, Tarisha.

Tarisha

Don’t be sorry.  This is fun, Hail.   We’ll talk later and I’ll tell you all about it, but I only have a moment to breath between pulls.  Got to go.  Good luck on whatever you’re working on!

Hail

Right.  Well, you don’t have to read this right away, but you do need to know … I just created a portal beacon in Briarton.  In 24 local hours, we’ll be able to use it to portal to Zhesa, Prowlhaven, and to the receiving platform in Ebbyvale.  In 78 local hours, it becomes a pathway into The Recent Past that anyone can use.  A lot of my strategy is going to be surrounding that, and I think you’ll want to adjust yours around it as well.

Joon-Ho

%#$^ #$%^#$ @$^$^$%

Lloyd

We’re too busy to respond properly at the moment, Hail, but thank you for the heads up.  When we complete this challenge quest, we will begin revising our strategy to take advantage of this resource.

Hail

Okay then.  Good luck guys!  I know you can do it, or I wouldn’t have given you the quest in the first place!

Rashid

Thank you, Hail.  Now please let us focus!