Unchosen Champion

Coop woke up early, not feeling particularly rested, but ready to go regardless. They had finally reached Day 64. Mentally, he was out of sorts as his nerves oscillated somewhere between excited and anxious for the settlement upgrade. They would finally replenish Ghost Reef’s mana reserves after the siege, and that meant they could call for reinforcements and return the phantoms. There were several points of concern when it came to how the phantoms would come back, but as long as the same people returned, Coop wasn’t particularly worried about any penalties they might receive. They could work through any difficulties together.

Even Sunny was caught by surprise when Coop jogged down the spiraling stairs of the lighthouse and stood in the living room, vigilant enough to head into battle, in spite of the early morning hour. Sunny scrambled from underneath the coffee table, paws sliding against the floor as he tried to match the Champion’s energy.

Sunny had never failed to anticipate Coop’s arrival, bouncing on his front paws with his tail wagging so hard his entire body wiggled back and forth when Coop’s footsteps reached the ground floor. But today, he had to struggle to catch up.

“Let’s go, bud.” Coop encouraged him, holding the door open for them both.

Coop led the way outside, beating the sun’s climb over the edge of the horizon by at least an hour. He didn’t hurry as he followed the stone path north across the island, knowing he was only rushing to wait. Every few dozen yards, a stack of ten folded tables had been staged next to a bundle of other materials. The residents would set them up once they roused for the day, as the planned celebration would begin later in the morning. It was long overdue, commemorating the original residents who took a potentially fatal chance in joining an unknown settlement as well as Ghost Reef’s victory during the siege event.

Coop continued all the way to the fort, passing the phantom guards waiting in the darkness with a quick, “Good morning.” He didn’t stop until he was next to the civilization shard. Accessing the menus, he double checked to see the incremental progress, confirming that it wasn’t determined by the day, but there was still plenty of time. The quest to upgrade the settlement from a Village to a Town had 5:23:14 to count down. Just a few more hours of stability before it was ready.

“No one will mess with us before then.” Coop nodded to himself as he wishfully manifested a smooth final stretch. If even the envoy had failed to introduce instability, he expected them to be fine for the last hours.

Some of his anxiety was relieved as he chuckled at the system’s settlement designations. Looking at the quest reminded him that they were going from a Village to a Town. He believed they had already progressed beyond a simple town by leaps and bounds, but that’s what they were on the verge of upgrading into, according to the system. Maybe if the considerations were based entirely on population it made some sense, but he had to imagine the major population centers going through the same stages at roughly the same speed were experiencing some appellative dissonance.

The optional quest was complete, with the Effigy of Constructs Trophy mounted on an interior ledge of the stone citadel that protected the shard. Whatever bonus it would provide would trigger along with the settlement upgrade. It was a creepy thing, which was appropriate considering the siege boss that had rewarded it. He was glad the colors hadn’t aimed for realism, instead appearing as if it was an ivory sculpture created for someone to decorate with eclectic taste.

Balor had cleverly installed nooks and spaces into the elevated interior of the citadel for the future treasures acquired by Ghost Reef. For now, they were hidden crannies for Jett to explore. The settlement essentially had an empty trophy case in the form of vaulted shelves. They could both prominently display their conquests in a centralized location while also keeping them protected in the event of a last stand. The Spectral Relic was a unique instance that both the stonemason and the settlement’s advisors agreed shouldn’t be tampered with. Coop suspected at least a small part of their collective opinion was based on a desire to avoid stepping on Jett’s toes. Even if she had expanded her exploration across the fort, she still held the lighthouse in special regard.

From what Coop understood, the Spectral Relic had already provided its upgrade to the fort and its continued presence wasn’t necessary for the settlement to empower the phantoms or the territory’s mana itself. They wouldn’t lose the Shipwright’s newfound ability to construct more ghost ships, and the crafters would still be able to create specialized items like Erasimus’s Spectral Under Armor, even if the relic was disturbed. The rewards that manipulated the settlement’s mana composition had been from the system itself and now emanated from the civilization shard, like the Purified buff that the Purification Chip had given the settlement. Still, he followed their lead and left the relic alone.

Coop settled into one of the smooth stone benches that faced the shard, happy to spend some time in the atrium of the citadel. It had real zen vibes with the vegetation blooming on the edges, the cool breeze slipping through cleverly placed gaps, the intricate swirling stone work patterned on the floor, and the gently glowing crystal in the center. He wanted to upgrade the settlement the second the opportunity arose, so he waited and enjoyed the early morning ambience of Ghost Reef’s central courtyard with the sun slowly joining him. It took a while before the bright light snuck above the fort walls, and when it did, the light immediately rushed into the crystal, through carefully angled slits, refracting all across the interior of the citadel like a ruby kaleidoscope.

Sunny came and went, excited by every person that strolled past. Coop was eventually joined by more residents. Marcus came early, anticipating Coop’s actions, and Shane’s party filtered in, one at a time, afterwards. Charlie and Camila took a seat on the bench with Coop, initiating a hushed conversation with Jones, while others mingled like they were at some kind of ribbon cutting ceremony. Coop kept one eye on the timer.

As the sun rose higher in the sky and the day flourished, Kayla dragged him into conversations, and he found himself surrounded by dozens of other residents, all equally excited and nervous as they waited for the same thing as him. It seemed like the entire settlement was more in tune than he expected. Rather than simply being dragged along, the residents were active participants in the developments around Ghost Reef.

By the time he parked himself by the shard, with more than 10 minutes remaining on the countdown, there were hundreds of people waiting in the shade along the main street, on benches and leaning against the service buildings, chatting in small groups, sipping coffees and snacking on alien croissants. The crowd was composed of every surviving member of the settlement. They all wanted to be there to welcome the phantoms home. They hadn’t been together for long, but they had fought side by side through what was the most harrowing experience just about any of them had ever experienced, and many of them owed their survival to the phantoms’ sacrifices.

In the late morning, Coop was finally able to complete the quest and Ghost Reef was officially upgraded to a town. The 22 days of settlement had lapsed, the siege boss trophy was collected for the bonus quest, and he spent the, at this point, insignificant 150,000 basic credits to complete the quest. Before he checked any of his notifications or sought out new options in the menus of the civilization shard, he mentally navigated to the army and resurrected the phantoms.

“There we go.” Coop stated, letting out a breath he hadn’t realized he had been holding, relieved that the button had finally worked.

A pulse of ghostly green energy silently expanded from the shard, quickly dissipating as if nothing happened, even though it drained most of the freshly filled settlement reserves. The preliminary action that triggered the rest. Coop stepped back as the shard hummed and the air vibrated while the gentle glow swiftly ignited until it was a bright white that came from all directions, engulfing the entire fort in its light. There was no looking away. Coop had to squeeze his eyes shut until he could watch the illumination dim through his eyelids. When it was done, there was a new crowd outside of the citadel.

Coop walked toward the bridge, leaving the fortified construction to welcome the phantoms, an excited smile on his face. Jones was healed, the settlement upgraded, and the phantoms were back.

The new arrivals were checking their own limbs and looking around, as expected of people suddenly returned to existence, but Coop quickly noticed something was off. The phantoms filled the entire market avenue, along the canal from the east and west, exactly how they had the first time around, except this time, they were on both sides of the canal in equal numbers.

Coop scanned the newcomers, trying to spot Rear Admiral Gideon in particular. It didn’t take long for the leader to make his presence known. The crowd parted while they were still getting their bearings as Gideon marched through the center, toward the shard.

“Champion Coop.” He stopped and stood ramrod straight, delivering an excessively serious salute.

Coop just smiled at the action. It was the same thing he had done when he arrived the first time. At the very least, it felt like a confirmation that he was the same person as before, personality-wise.

“Are you whole?” Coop carefully asked, not entirely sure how to phrase the question.

“It appears the only consequence was a loss of experience.” Gideon responded, only partially confident, possibly disappointed in the personal failure to have received any penalty at all.

Coop applied Presence of Mind, inspecting Gideon and a few other phantoms and wraiths in his vicinity.

[Spectral Human (Level 1)]

[Harrier (Mind)]

[Phantom of Ghost Reef]

[Ethereal (Dauntless)]

[Spectral Human (Level 1)]

[Avenger (Body)]

[Phantom of Ghost Reef]

[Spirit (Dauntless)]

[Spectral Human (Level 1)]

[Ghostly Tormentor (Agility)]

[Wraith of Ghost Reef]

[Incorporeal (Dauntless)]

“Hmm…” Coop hummed. They had been reduced all the way to level one. That was pretty rough, but compared to actual death? Coop nodded, accepting the change. He’d gladly trade his own experience for a second chance if it ever came down to it.

“That’s not a problem.” Coop promised, unable to contain his smile any longer. “We’ll get you caught up in no time. Ledwidge has been dying to get you all properly trained anyway.” Gideon bowed his head respectfully in response.

“What about your memories?” Coop wondered, still worrying about things.

“I remember the first 10 waves of the siege.” Gideon confirmed to Coop’s relief. “I suppose we won?”

Coop laughed. “Yes, we won. Welcome back.” He said, clapping Gideon on the shoulder.

The residents and phantoms that had remained behind Coop, waiting for the Champion to verify the situation, cheered. The survivors rushed into the crowd to find their friends and comrades in arms and Kayla shouted for the pirates that she would have cleaning hulls until they reacquired all the experience they wasted by dying.

It was a bit of a chaotic reunion, but Coop stayed by Gideon and waved a hand toward all of the phantoms. “Aren’t there more of you now?” He questioned curiously, raising his voice to be heard over the shouts and relieved exaltations.

“Yes.” The Rear Admiral confirmed. “There are 10,000 phantoms and 5,000 wraiths now. Our forces have doubled.” Gideon explained matter-of-factly.

“Huh.” Coop muttered. “Why?”

“The settlement has been upgraded.” Gideon answered, like it was the most obvious thing in the world, clearly assuming the Champion was testing his faculties with the query, just like with their first encounter. Coop hadn’t expected more phantoms, though. It made sense, given they were tied to Ghost Reef. He would need to remember to check for reinforcements the next time they upgraded.

“You still have your classes and titles? What about skills?” Coop continued, curious about their situation.

“Everything is as it was at the time of my defeat, only my experience has been reset.” Gideon answered patiently.

“Hm.” Coop mumbled, thinking about how they could take advantage of their second chance. Would they be able to farm additional skills? He thought it was more likely that they wouldn’t get a selection at the normal level thresholds. No new skills until they surpassed their previous level.

“Wait, what about your attributes?” Coop wondered.

“The ones granted for levels are gone, the ones granted by skills or applied by titles remain.” Gideon explained.

So, they were extremely overpowered level ones. They could even look at it like a stat reset. All in all, not the most punishing situation that Coop could have imagined.

Shane and Arthur appeared while Coop considered the impact of the growing defensive army and their second go at leveling. “Welcome back, Gideon.” Shane grasped Gideon’s forearm as they shook arms in greeting and the two exchanged some brief explanations regarding how the rest of the siege went.

Marcus had climbed onto the deck of the coffee shop and started banging a pot with a wooden spoon as he shouted for people to make their way out the main gate. They wanted to get the party started. Barely anyone paid him any mind, but those that started moving were enough to encourage the others to follow. Coop sent Gideon to join the makeshift advisory council on their way to the festivities.

Coop returned to the citadel, intending to check his notifications before he went to the beach himself, but he found Jones looking a bit shell-shocked. “You alright?” Coop checked in.

“Never thought I’d see the fort so full.” Jones admitted. “It’s a bit overwhelming.”

“You’re telling me!” Coop readily agreed with a laugh as he put his hand on the old man’s shoulder. “Just wait a little bit, it becomes the most normal thing in the world to have them around so fast it’s even more surprising.” Coop nodded as he watched the parade head toward the beach. “It felt empty without them.”

“And they’re all real people from the area?” Jones still had some doubts.

“It seems like it.” Coop answered, waving his hand toward the ghosts. “Gideon was in the area around civil war times, but there’s all sorts. The pirates are all from the same period as they were one big fleet, but the rest of the phantoms are a big mix. I’m pretty sure a bunch of them predate the fort.”

“I wonder if I can do interviews.” Jones contemplated, already excited by the possibility, but hesitant to make such a request.

Coop snorted. “Jones. You’re the boss, you can make them all write autobiographies and submit them to you personally.” Jones was obviously skeptical, but Coop wouldn’t let go that the fort was the old man’s house, as much as the lighthouse was Jett’s.

Coop sent Jones to wander along with the flow of the crowd while Coop checked his notifications. He was already interested in the next upgrade. He couldn’t help but be curious about how large the phantom army could become, or if it would continue to grow at all. Was it even fair for such an early upgrade bonus to continue scaling? Not that he would complain.

[Quest Complete! Upgrade Village to Town]

[+4 Mana Pylon (Resource)]

[Champion title upgraded!]

[You have a new quest!]

“Sweet deal.” He mumbled to himself, checking the title first.

The Champion III title had been applying +25 to all stats, and the upgrade to Champion IV pushed the bonus up to +50. Without his passive bonuses influencing the totals, it was a solid 150 more stats than before. A significant boost even at Coop’s current level.

Completing the quest rewarded the settlement with several more advisor slots, with additional designations, a second subordinate shard slot, new mana pylons, and a free recruitable guard captain. First things first, he’d make the advisor positions official and they’d have appropriate access to the shard’s privileges.

Next, he checked the quest: Upgrade Town to City. The objective was another seemingly simple request, and the optional task was almost identical to the main objective, but simple didn’t mean easy in this case. All it required was establishing a subordinate settlement and the optional quest required the subordinate settlement to reach a specific population at the time of the upgrade: one hundred thousand residents.

Coop shook his head, a bit worried about the settlements being pitted against each other by quest objectives as they reached the Town stage. Hopefully, the territory grabs at the start of the assimilation had calmed and people would be more willing to work together toward their common goal of survival now that shards had been claimed and settlements developed. Surely, the siege event would have been a wake up call as to their common foe, and they would understand that they didn’t really need to continue upgrading all of the settlements forever. Right?

“It’s not naive to be hopeful.” Coop reassured himself, doubting groups of people would stop fighting on their own, especially after already making enemies with each other. In any case, he put the idea of upgrading the settlement again to the side and checked the settlement leaderboards instead.

Day 64

Yucatan

Silvervalley

Can Gio

Lekawa

Englischer Garten

Nyiragongo

Glenveagh

Wakatobi

Ordesa

Zahamena

Ghost Reef was ranked 27. They’d actually slid backwards by a few positions, down from the 23rd spot more than a month earlier, despite so many settlements losing their civilization shards completely. Coop knew it was because they had to wait extra days thanks to the siege occupying them for its entire duration while others had breaks in between waves, allowing their countdowns to move quicker than in his settlement. The Ghost Reef upgrade had been late when compared to the frontrunners.

The top 10 was almost completely different, mostly filled with settlements he hadn’t noticed before. They were almost certainly the already successful settlements that had received a x5 multiplier during the siege and therefore had the opportunity to get the most recent upgrade the earliest. Only a few had been in the top 10 at all previously, and Silvervalley had been the consistent number one, finally surpassed for the first time.

The settlement ranks seemed to have too many variables to really compare progress directly. The individual scores made more sense: highest level up top with the first to reach a level keeping the first spot in the case of a tie. Settlements seemed to be measured first by the stage, then by the resident population, with security, territory area, power levels, system services, and who knows what else factoring in. If it wasn’t for the time limitations on several of the upgrades, he wouldn’t even know if they were at the same stage.

He scrolled further through the list, confirming that many of the familiar settlements remained, just at slightly lower positions. Neon Park, Gangcheon, and Shinjuku Gardens were all in the early twenties. There were a total of 275 settlements remaining, and Empress City was dead last. Coop shook his head, wondering what the heck was going on over there.

Finally, he double-checked the quest rewards, making sure nothing was missing. The reward for the optional portion of the quest was the Guard Captain slot, but he couldn’t help but immediately feel a bit disappointed that it hadn’t jumped out as an extravagant upgrade to the settlement. Instead of something grand, like an army of ghosts, he had received something more akin to an advisor slot. The regular upgrade had provided something more interesting in the Mana Pylons. They could be used to expand the settlement’s territory or for establishing outposts that would be under the umbrella of the civilization shard.

While Coop wasn’t particularly impressed, they did remind him to check the shard to view the updated territory before he joined the party.

“Wow.” Coop mumbled after he accessed the overhead view of their holdings. “That’s a lot.”

It looked like all of the islands in the Ghost Reef chain were now within their range, along with all of the reefs that extended into the ocean. Coop had trouble understanding why the expansion had been so dramatic. They were only a Town, but he guessed their territory extended 20 miles across. It had been significantly smaller before.

“Good thing the siege came first.” Coop observed, imagining how many more waves they might have needed to fend off if their territory had already expanded so extensively.

The only other thing that jumped out at him was that they had also been given a free service building: the Pylon Matrix. It would allow them to construct more Pylons, but Coop didn’t even know what he would do with the four he received. It wasn’t like there was land for them to claim anywhere near their current territory.

There were actually a ton of new options in the management and build menus, but he’d delayed himself from the party enough already. He’d christen new advisors in the extra slots and let them handle the rest. He practically skipped his way up the main street to catch up with everyone else.