Unchosen Champion

Coop’s predawn routine began as usual. Jett seemed to be finding more creative ways to sleep, this time she had all four of her legs up in the air, occasionally kicking one or the other in response to her dreams. Coop left her to wash his face and do his morning warm up at the top of the fort.

He would jog a bit and enjoy the sunrise while stretching, then he’d take a quick shower and have breakfast at the Tavern. It used to be a lot harder to wake up before dawn, though he still did, but he used to rely on the aid of multiple alarms. Now, he woke up by himself. He supposed it was proof that sleep wasn’t as necessary as it had been before. He still wanted to keep a regular schedule, as he credited his simple routine for granting him the wherewithal to grind so many monsters. The journey of gathering strength would be a marathon. In his own way, he was pacing himself.

As he casually jogged along the ramparts he noticed something far in the distance, too far to make out any details. He continued his jog and watched the mystery object drift lazily toward the island. As the sun breached the horizon he realized it was a small boat.

Coop interrupted his routine to find Jones and let him know they might have some visitors. A few minutes later, he was joined by Jones at the top of the fort, watching the vessel approach. Once it was closer it became clear that Coop’s initial assessment, calling it a boat, was too generous. It was nothing more than a raft. It had three occupants.

Coop hustled across the island to the eastern beach where the raft would land. He hurried in case they needed help. The cool sand on the trail was already warming in the morning sun as he marched across it. He didn’t feel like much of a welcoming committee, but he’d do his best.

When he reached the beach the raft had already washed onto the shore. Two young boys were laying in the sand, exhausted, with relieved expressions on their faces. They had obviously been at sea for long enough to miss solid ground. The third person was standing further up the beach, watching Coop approach. She was an old lady, with white hair and a face that had been weathered by what must have been hard living in salt air and hurricane winds. She was leaning on a driftwood staff that was taller than she was, but that only meant the staff was a bit over five feet tall. All three looked ragged.

Coop heard her rouse the boys in the sand to attention, warning them of his approach. She told them to stand up and look peaceful and let her try to communicate because the man wouldn’t understand their language. But Coop did understand, they had a skill for that. He identified the old lady.

[Human (Level 2)]

Coop felt his eyebrows rise, surprised by how low level she was. The boys had both stood up, and were covered in sand. Even though Coop thought they must be around 12 years old, they were both half a head taller than the lady. He identified them as well.

[Human (Level 0)]

[Human (Level 0)]

Coop wondered how they had managed so far, but judging by their states it had been a struggle. Their clothes were barely rags and their faces showed the pile of stress that they had been under. Coop raised a hand to greet them, “Do you need help?”

The old lady’s eyes widened, “Why can I understand you?” She didn’t expect a foreign man to speak the patois from her village, the only language she had ever heard. The boys looked at each other, also surprised.

“I think the system gave everyone the language skill…” Coop trailed off realizing how much there would be to explain if they didn’t know anything about what was happening. But the old lady’s expression changed from confusion to one of understanding.

“There were some in our village who spoke of the system. They tried to warn us but I didn’t believe their words.” She said solemnly as the boys both looked at the sand, hiding their emotions.

Coop read the depressing mood and invited them to the fort, pointing across the island where they could all see it standing. When he mentioned food, both of the boys’ faces lit up with excitement. The old lady had them drag their raft up the beach and Coop jumped to help. The raft was just thin strips of wood held together with woven palm fronds, not something Coop would be willing to take to sea. A single oar was all they had to share, they were otherwise at the mercy of the ocean’s currents. It had been luck that they made it back to land at all.

He led the trio along the trails. The boys barely held themselves back from running to the fort, but the old lady kept a slow pace. The three newcomers all froze when they saw their first Ancient Defender and the old lady grabbed Coop’s arm.

“Those creatures are dangerous!” She pointed, trying to warn Coop.

“We’ve got them under control, don’t worry…” He tried to coax them along but they still hesitated. He thought a demonstration would help so he gently released himself from the old lady’s feeble grip and walked off the trail. As he approached the Ancient Defender, he conjured the short sword and dispatched the monster with one swing, splitting it in half down the middle before it dissipated into the breeze. He dismissed his sword and turned back.

When he returned to the waiting trio, the boys looked impressed but the old lady remained worried.

“My village thought we had similar monsters under control, but they multiplied, grew stronger, more aggressive. They killed everyone that stayed, my son and his wife, their parents…” The boys stoically nodded along. “We’re the only survivors from the ones who remained in the village... You must flee and find a system settlement!”

Coop got a slightly clearer image for how the areas away from settlements would become dangerous. Even with his experience fighting the weak Ancient Defenders, a horde of them would not be something he felt comfortable defeating.

He tried alleviating their concerns, “This is a system settlement, c’mon to the fort and I’ll show you.” He led the way doing his best to display reassuring confidence.

The old lady explained as they made their way. She was one of the elders of a village that had 54 people living in it. They were just a small island community with a few fishermen and farmers that had been there for ages.

When the meteors fell, half of the young adults were sponsored. They had all returned from their factions by the first day. They warned the village that they needed to flee to a settlement, but the elders declared there was no need and that they would stay put. They were already in a settlement after all, one that had remained for hundreds of years.

The Chosen tried to explain what they had learned about the system, but to the rest of the village it was the ramblings of young people who had lost their minds after witnessing a rare natural disaster. They had witnessed an unbelievable event and afterwards began calling themselves Chosen, raving about impossible scenarios, so the village treated them with pity rather than respect.

The Chosen wound up abandoning the village for their own search, taking fishing boats and leaving the rest of the villagers behind. The remaining villagers set up guards and easily dispatched the few monsters that stood around listlessly on their island. The monsters appeared weak, but they always returned.

After only a few days the village was already adapting to the weak monster’s presence, but the monsters started adapting as well. First, they started roaming instead of staying in one spot, forcing the villagers to remain more vigilant lest they be caught unexpectedly. Then the monsters started forming groups that the villagers had to actively avoid. The village started experiencing casualties. Eventually, the monsters started appearing physically larger and more aggressive, no longer roaming, but hunting. It all culminated with dozens of the stronger variants attacking their village in an almost coordinated assault.

All of the other villagers were killed, the state of the Chosen who had fled was unknown, and only one elder and her two grandchildren escaped. They drifted on the raft for three days, remembering the warning the Chosen had given. They needed to seek shelter in a settlement created by the system, where the monsters would be subdued by magic.

The village’s Chosen had returned from their factions with the same warning as Jones, emphasizing the necessity of residing within a settlement. Coop and Jones had been truly lucky to have access to a civilization shard. Coop glanced at the Ancient Defenders, recognizing that they had been handicapped by the presence of their settlement.

Jones was waiting at the gate of the fort, prepared to welcome guests. He let them know that he had warned the Tavernkeepers to expect them, so Coop continued, joined by Jones and followed by the villagers, through the entrance and down the future Main Street to the Clumsy Shark.

Maeve was waiting inside the Tavern. She indicated to the trio that she had prepared baths for them and would have stew ready for them when they came back down. Before she led them up, she linked herself onto one of Coop’s arms, pressing him gently, and invited him to let her draw a bath for him as well.

He politely declined, so she led the trio up the stairs after giving Coop a wink. One of the boys earned a smack from their grandmother when she caught him staring a bit too hard before they were gone. Coop shook his head.

“Seems like that one likes you.” Jones observed. Coop wasn’t blind, flirting with Maeve had already become another part of his routine. A part that he looked forward to.

“Nah, she’s just playing around.” Coop denied.

“Or maybe you’re the only eligible bachelor for hundreds of miles.” Jones retaliated, casually taking a seat. Coop joined him, sitting beside him.

In any case, they had survival to think about, so he changed the subject and discussed further development of the settlement. Desmond emerged from the kitchen bringing both of them bowls of stew before returning to the back.

In a few hours they would finally be able to complete the quest to upgrade the settlement to an outpost. The first quest had been simple, requiring a basic building, 1,000 Basic Credits, and waiting 11 days. They considered potential requirements for future upgrades. They were expecting more of the same with the addition of population requirements. If the trio of refugees joined them, they would already be up to a population of 10. Coop thought they could just keep adding buildings to slowly grow the population. As long as they didn’t need hundreds of people, increasing the population with aliens seemed like a possibility.

The villagers returned to the first floor with Maeve. They each received a bowl of stew as Desmond returned to the bar. Jones brought the elder villager up to speed, telling her about the fort and offering them all shelter as they had plenty of room. She had them call her Olani as she claimed she was no longer fit for the title of elder.

Olani may have renounced her title, but she was clearly a natural leader. Rather than simply accept their hospitality, she volunteered herself and her grandchildren to work for a place in the settlement. Coop didn’t think it was necessary for them to work, but she had already decided. She had many skills, so she would find ways to contribute, but her grandchildren didn’t yet. So, she was assigning the boys to be lookouts for the fort, fearing a raid on even the system settlements. Coop thought it was a fine idea.

Once they finished eating, Jones led them to the civilization shard to see if they could get professions started. The boys couldn’t interact with the shard yet, and wouldn’t be able to level at all until they got older. Olani, on the other hand, had many options. She chose to become a Basic Alchemist, something she was particularly passionate about doing. Jones guided the trio through accessing menus and assigning attribute points. The boys could access their status, but only had three of each stat. Olani put all of her points into Body after only a brief consideration for waiting until she unlocked a class. She was old, but planned to be even older.

As they went through other nuances of the system it approached the time to upgrade the settlement. Coop was ready at the shard for the very second the upgrade became available. After he upgraded it he was prompted to assign a name, he named it Ghost Reef as previously agreed upon and waited for the fireworks.

Nothing happened. He accessed the shard and confirmed the settlement had been upgraded to an Outpost. Jones, observing Coop’s disappointment, asked what he expected, it was only an Outpost. Coop expected confetti at least. Coop viewed his notifications, disappointed at the lack of a visual celebration for a major accomplishment.

[Quest Complete! Upgrade Camp to Outpost]

[Champion title upgraded!]

[You have a new quest!]

The Champion title now gave him +10 to all stats instead of +5, a boost that he was happy to receive. It wasn’t as significant for his current status as the original title had been when they first claimed the settlement, but Coop wasn’t greedy enough to complain about bonuses not being large enough.

The reward for completing the quest was interesting. He could contract five new residents for the settlement. They would be at a basic level from one of several vocations. He nearly grabbed five laborers to help Balor, but he and Jones went through the different options first. There were basic options like farmhands, gatherers, guards, and fishermen. The benefit of laborers was the most apparent after all, but they needed to provide housing before recruiting them. They decided to confirm with Balor that they would be useful before consuming their choice.

The next quest in the chain, to upgrade the Outpost to a Village, required four buildings, one defensive building and three others, 25,000 basic credits, and a population greater than 10. Coop squinted at the requirements, realizing they could already almost complete it. He just needed to collect enough basic credits, which he could do with another day of grinding. The fort qualified as a defensive building and they had a Stonemason, Tavern, and Brewery for the other three. He could also recruit one laborer to push the population over 10. It was too easy.

There was also an optional objective. The objective was to collect a relic to enhance the mana within the settlement’s territory. It recommended a relic of the Champion’s affinity. Neither Coop nor Jones knew anything about mana quality, but both thought it would be a good idea to complete the objective before upgrading the settlement, even if it delayed the upgrade. The quest even indicated the location of a suitable relic on the territory map.

The shard provided a bird’s eye view of the settlement’s territory to the Champion. With the upgrade, the territory had grown to include a significant portion of the reef to the north and west, the lighthouse and a bit offshore to the south, and the entire eastern beach with most of the mangrove forest to the east. The map also zoomed out further to show the location of the nearest spectral relic. It didn’t show specific geography, just a marked point on top of fog of war.

Coop described the distance to Jones, about 60 miles north, who predicted it was the location of an oil rig. There had been nothing but open ocean in that direction prior to the introduction of mana, and while it was possible new islands had formed, Jones knew there were rigs in that direction.

They had no idea how he would reach it. They might need to use the settlement to build a Shipwright, but they were very expensive and the settlement didn’t meet the requirements for constructing one anyway. Coop thought that if they couldn’t figure something out, they should just skip the optional portion of the quest, but Jones recommended patience. Still, Coop didn’t want to delay the settlement upgrades for too long.

Finally, Coop got ready to check the Settlement Leaderboards. He hadn’t looked since they first unlocked, not wanting to spoil it for himself. They had been the 373rd to claim a shard, and that was all the way back to when they had killed their very first Ancient Defender, now it was Day 13 and they had successfully upgraded the settlement as soon as it was available. Their rank was guaranteed to be higher, slipping past any who failed to upgrade the settlement immediately. He checked the list and quickly found Ghost Reef at the bottom as no other settlements had become outposts in the short time since they had.

Ghost Reef

It was a way higher ranking than Coop expected. He thought at best they might jump 100 places, not more than 300. He wondered if the civilization shards had been exchanging hands more frequently than anticipated, preventing any from completing the 11 day holding period. He didn’t think that bode well for the state of humanity. He checked the top 10 for good measure.

Silvervalley

Gangcheon

Lekawa

Hope Falls

Canyon Brooks

Eynelon

Fortunis

Nadoba

Windy Coast

New Elega

There wasn’t a lot of information to glean. He didn’t recognize any of the top 10 as previously existing cities. He wondered how many civilization shards there were in total. He hoped there was enough to go around, worried that more people like Olani’s village would be in trouble as time went on.

With the official christening of Ghost Reef, he had one more major objective to try to complete today. He bid farewell to Jones and Onali and headed up Main Street with the intention of grinding Ancient Defenders until sunset.

1,300 to go before he completed the Defeat Ancient Defenders IV quest.