Chapter 8: Guilds

"So," started Aragorn as they rested. "You guys seem cool. Wanna form a Guild?" The three sat around a tiny bonfire curtesy of Aragorn's creation. Dave was bored, staring into it while waiting for the others so he was spending the time constantly reconfiguring the gryphon.

He had gotten it to form an incomplete cannon on its head, incomplete laser eyes and an incomplete ion cannon pointing out its butt. Because he could.

"Stop, doing that," complained Marieta feeling aggravated. "You're ruining the majesty and mystique of having a gryphon for a flying mount. And... what the is that thing?"

"Ion cannon," Dave said, chuckling as he had the modules realign back to the base gryphon form. "Doesn't work though. It needs either specialized power modules or me to be higher level to supply the power through our psychic link."

"Hello? Guild?" Aragorn prompted. "Wait, so you have a psychic link to the gryphon?"

"Eh, it's just some modules and some nano sludge in the shape of a gryphon. I could form it into a floating barge but the gryphon looked cooler. Its AI is so dumb that according to the flavor text the system is giving me, it actually uses the unused sections of the psychic's brain to think with."

There was a moment of silence and then the trio broke out into chuckles. "That is the stupidest backstory on fake tech I have ever heard. Who the hell would use it if it used the person's brain to think?"

The others laughed in agreement. "I still want to learn it even if the tech rationales are silly," Marieta snorted delicately.

"Okay, back to my question. Guild."

"It there even a guild mechanic yet?" Dave asked.

"I checked with the system. There is," Aragorn confirmed. "It requires that the guild leader and officers are Knights."

"I thought that was a vanity title," Marieta asked in confusion. The others looked at her, remembering how she had said she had gained hers.

"Yeah, it doesn't seem particularly fair," Dave added. "On the other hand probably everyone is going to have it before long."

"Well, you are both knights so it shouldn't matter," Aragorn shrugged dismissively.

"I don't know," Marieta said. "I prefer small guilds. The larger guilds have a new drama every day."

"I don't mind the size thing but I generally go into a guild with my friends. They had to work this summer and didn't get into the beta. I'll probably join whatever guild they do."

"We can invite them in once they can get in," Aragorn replied. "You seem pretty cool. Assuming your friends aren't total jerks it should be fine. You'll be an officer anyway. Invite them yourself."

"Hmm," Dave nodded thoughtfully. Except for a slight, but completely reasonable streak of vengeance Aragorn seemed okay. Marieta seemed nice too. "Okay, I'm in."

"Marieta?" Aragorn prompted.

"I like small guilds," Marieta pointed out.

"We're starting small," Aragorn countered. "I don't want to invite everyone in sight either. The system says the maximum guild numbers at this time is a hundred."

"That's pretty small," Dave said. "I like it since I don't like grouping with a bunch of strangers, but compared to all the other MMOs out there it's small."

"The system spouted some garbage about a hundred being the maximum number an unamplified guild leader support."

"Sounds like they'll patch it later. After the beta," Dave grunted.

"Okay," Marieta hesitantly accepted. "But any guild drama and I am out."

"We'll be careful who we invite," acknowledged Aragorn. "For the beta, we just need enough to try all the content."

"If you would like to form a Guild please form a psionic link with the others in your guild. Your AI designated 'Gryphon' can act as the housekeeping interface."

"Oh cool," said Dave. "The system says that the AI in the gryphon can be used for the basic interface."

"Like invites, chatting, grouping, role calls and list the guild members," Aragorn asked with a frown. "Didn't you say the AI is actually part of your brain? That makes even less sense now."

"Yeah," Dave said absently. His link was showing him how to assemble the interface to make it look similar to what he had used in the past. "This is weird. They made me design it from scratch using my technology skill from the Imperial tech tree."

"Was it hard?"

"Well, no," Dave replied to Marieta. "It's just kind of silly it didn't have a default setting. When you get the Imperial tech skill you'll see how they do the dream logic thing. It's actually really fun. It makes you feel like you are a genius engineer controlling the super science construct. It's all fake but it feels so real."

"Oh, I can't wait," shouted Marieta excitedly. "I am almost topped up. Let's go find those skill books!"

"Globe's," corrected Dave.

"I'm almost topped up. Let's see if I can access that interface first," Aragorn said. "Okay, seems decent. You made it? It looks like WoW's."

"Yes, well," coughed Dave in embarrassment. He had literally whipped it up in ten seconds, of course it wasn't going to be original. "I can change it if you want..."

"No, it's fine. Probably better than what the system would come up with. It seems very anti interface. Okay. Let's go."

The battles got shorter and shorter. The others were combining skills and those skills were getting higher leveled and less costly. They moved through the massive glistening caverns and down two more stairs with ease. The twenty husks left were taken out in pairs and only forced the group to stop and rest twice more.

"Okay one more cavern and then the command room."

"How many more husks?"

"Nano forge says none," Dave replied. "But it's fishy. It won't give me data on the actual room and the room we are going into shows as empty but it won't let me access anything. Not even the lights."

"Wait. You could have turned on the damn lights?" Aragorn asked in irritation. He had been floating a ball of fire in front of them to allow them to see.

Dave coughed in embarrassment. "Yes. I just realized it when I noticed I couldn't do anything to any setting in the next room."

"Grrr. Fine." Aragorn growled in annoyance and Marieta snickered. "There's obviously an encounter of some kind. Considering the Imperial tech angle it's probably a robot."

"Could be. Maybe there's an AI module or something in there. Should I turn my gryphon into a giant robot and fight it mano a mano?"

Aragorn actually considered it a moment. "Will changing how it looks actually allow it to do anything?"

"No," Dave said with a smile. "But battling robots would be pretty cool."

"Right up until it one shots you," Marieta gave them a dose of cold reality.

"Okay, let's call that plan Z," Aragorn replied. "Alright tank, jump in and see if a giant robot tries to kill us."

Nodding, Dave glided into the room. As soon as he entered it, his Clairvoyance activated and told him to move to the left. He did so and a section of the floor he was moving through a moment ago bulged upward like a boiling silver blister. Bursting, it formed a rotating double bladed rotor and started to speed after him.

"Ack! Trap room!" Dave said as he started to dodge frantically. He did not want to end up drained from Clairvoyance overuse so he paid close attention to the spinning blades and dodged 'manually' as it approached. Then within a blink another blister formed and he was dodging two.

"I think this is just going to get worse," he sent to the others. "We may need to dodge them and get to the central room. Try to destroy one."

Jerkily moving across the floor he was now dodging five blades. The others stood at the entrance to the cavernous room and started to bombard the first blade. Sections were burned away, only to reform from the floor.

"Looks like its not destructible," Aragorn said.

"Okay, I'll head towards the central control room. Hopefully, it doesn't lock me in alone with whatever is there," Dave told them. A classic dungeon would have the boss room lockdown after the boss was engaged.

"Once you get close we'll run up," Aragorn said. Dave snorted. Neither of them had a movement power. There was no way they would catch up.

Narrowly dodging the blades he made his way across the room to the central door. Behind him, he was vaguely aware of the other two starting their sprint and new blades being generated from the ground.

On reaching the door, he threw it open and darted inside. He had to use his Remote viewing to perceive the area since the floating torch had been left far behind. Dave noted a figure in a throne-like chair before a flash of light lit up the room and some force threw him out the door the way he came. His Clairvoyance did not activate, implying there was no way to avoid the attack.

Speeding backwards uncontrollably through the air from the force, he blew past the others still making their way to the door. He was fortunate enough to avoid the blades as he reached the cavern entrance and then skidded along the floor almost a hundred more feet into the corridor.

Standing up with a slight wobble he realized that the blow he endured had removed half his HP and half his psionic points despite his Fortify ability.

"Coming back in," he called out over their link.

"Hurry up," Marieta called back. "There's a man in a silver throne coming out of the room. It's hard to see him with just Aragorn's light."

"A trio of village whelps come to storm our Imperial bastion," a voice reverberated over the air. "The Rebellion may have temporarily saved your miserable existence but it's only temporary. Consider today the day I call in the marker."

Once more in sight of the central room, Dave saw that silver throne had moved out of it and was now in the cavern. Zigzagging past the spinning blades he moved forward to meet him.

A flash of light and Marieta went flying out through the entrance of the cavern. She had no defensive ability and only some healing ability. Dave wasn't sure she was going to be able to get up.

No, as he went closer he realized that the throne was made up of silvery material from the nano forge. However, it wasn't a weapon. Tubes of silver wrapped the man sitting on the throne. They supported him and in several cases penetrated his skin, pulsing as they delivered life preserving material. The throne wasn't a weapon. It was life support.

The man that sat on the throne may once have looked impressive. He wore a seamless silver suit of armor. It looked vaguely medieval, almost as if he was a knight, however, its lack of seams or opening gave the lie to this. However, cracks covered the surface and an entire leg and arm were simply gone.

"One week. That's all I needed," the man's voice filled the room again. Now that he knew that he was hurt he could hear the strain in the voice. "I could have healed from this if you had given me a week. Still, a few village bumkins won't be able to touch me. Even the Rebellion only drove me away."

Aragorn was moving around invisible TK barriers he generated. The only way they could be seen was by how the spinning blades were careening off of them. A flash of light and a beam flashed out from the Imperial's outstretched arm. A distortion of light showed how the attack blew through a barrier. It was weakened enough only to knock down Aragorn. This still left him scrambling to avoid the blades.

"Use the spinning blades as cover for his attacks. Try to target those tubes going into him. I'll distract him with a head-on attack." Dave looked to the side and saw his HPs and Psi points were both at 75%.

Moving close to the spinning blade, Dave waited until the Imperial aimed at him and dodged behind a blade. As he had expected the attack was deflected away. He immediately projected himself toward the man.

The man was obviously targeting Aragorn when he saw Dave speed over. Switching targets he tried to shoot Dave again. Clairvoyance guided him to a path that barely allowed him to avoid the attack. While he was still attempting to retarget him he used his TK movement to leap forward to kick him in the throat where a prominent support tube was entering his body.

A roar of pain echoed through the chamber, followed by a grunt as Aragorn's fiery attacks struck another tube. When the Imperial pointed at Dave again he was panicking about how to avoid the attack when he realized he could move behind the throne itself. Diving behind the massive seat, he was only able to relax for an instant before noted there were tubes jutting out.

A flash of light in the tubes caused his Clairvoyance to trigger again. This time he attempted to aim his dodge up and over the throne. He was in mid-air as he crossed to the front of the throne above the Imperial.

In the few seconds Dave had been out of sight Aragorn had not faired well. He had obviously taken a hit from either the blades or the imperials psi lance. Dave triggered his TK movement straight downward. Striking the enemies head and forcing it downward until his chin was embedded in his chest.

"Pathetic worms! How dare you resist the might of the Empire. Your world will Burn!"

Bending down and grasping hold of the man's head, he used it to lever himself until he flipped down until he was straddling the arm of the throne and using both hands to wresting the arm than the Imperial had been aiming his lance with until it pointed straight up.

"Why do you think that's going to work," Aragorn asked as he again struggled past the blades and continued to strike the tubes. "We can fire out abilities out of any place we want. Why should he be different."

"My Imperial Science skill is telling me that he is wearing badly damaged standard Imperial armor," Dave informed him raggedly as he was struggling to balance on the thrones and keep control of the arm. "It's hard, extremely durable... and acts as a massive psionic amplifier. If he wants that lance to hit us for all its doing now he has to use that arm. Otherwise, it will just sting a bit."

At this point, translucent tentacles of psionic energy enveloped both the Imperial and the throne. Moments later they solidified and hardened points lashed down to impale the wounded man. The tentacles that lashed towards the armor were deflected. However, the armor was breached by the sheer loss of two limbs and tubes from the throne entered the armor in many locations. Through these opening the psionics limbs lanced forward.

Screams of agony came from the Imperial gradually weakening. Finally, the tense form relaxed into death.

"About time you came back," Aragorn shouted, still dodging the blades. "I thought you were having a nap back there."

Marieta, stood at the entrance to the cavern. From there she could attack and the blades were not chasing her down. She looked bruised and haggard.

"Did you know that the game has a stun condition when you take a single blow that almost kills you?"

"No," Aragorn replied in surprise.

"Neither did I," Marieta spat out. "Now shut up while we figure how to turn off the blades."

"I got it," said Dave from his position, almost straddling the corpse. "Now that this guy isn't controlling the area I can get in and turn off the defenses."

Moments later the blades liquified and sank into the floor. "Great, let's set the self-destruct and head back."

"Hold on," Dave said with surprise in his voice. "The system is giving me the option to turn this into our base."

Really?" Marieta asked. "This is a nano forge, right? I'll bet this is the perfect spot to craft."

"It is," Dave said agreeably. "The AI is pretty dumb but it actually has one. Looks like it enhances all Imperial skills and... oh, looked like there a couple of skill globes in the central room. Go get them!"

"So we can make this our guild hall? But we'd have to give up the quest to destroy it," Aragorn pointed out.

"It's not like we have a quest log," Marieta called out from inside the central room. Light flashed as a globe activated. "That silly quest board is more of a suggestion board. Oh my god, this is amazing. I feel like I know everything!"

Lights all over the nano forge lit up, allowing them to actually see the area without the floating fireball or Remote Viewing.

"Dream logic altered states for the win," Dave said with an ironic smile. "I am okay keeping it. If we have enough people with Imperial Tech I think we can change the interior and actually have defenses."

"Oh, it would be nice to have a base that didn't look so... silvery," Marieta said as she came out of the room.

"Oh, defenses," Aragorn said as he wandered into the room to learn the skill. "That implies invasions! That will be fun. We get to defend the base. I would guess the Imperials will want it back," Dave saw a flash from the room as the skill globe was used. "Oh my. It's full of stars."