The Forgotten Legacy

After a quick talk with Eric, who had given him a update on the progress of getting everyone sorted at the compound, Shaun returned to amending his skill. The update had been interesting though. From what he was told many people had joined his side in smaller groups or as individuals, many of them having had dealings with the Pantheon and deciding that they would rather go with an unknown than side with what many were calling classist, elitest and crazy.

Those who were strong or in larger organised groups were welcomed into the Pantheon as it did a lot to boost their strength. Those that were smaller or independent were shunned and either turned away from settlements or straight out attacked.

This wasn’t a good sign for anyone as if the Pantheon won it would mean the entire planet would turn out this way. It was bad news for Shaun as it meant that the people that were fighting for him were unorganised and generally weaker. The exception to this was the Elves, his own settlement and only a small handful of smaller F grade settlements.

The thing with this event was that to gain any progress you would need to form up several armies that worked well together and had a good chain of command and people willing to put their lives on the line, or at least their time in the event, to work for the greater good of your side.

Convincing people of this was easy enough, but actually forming this chain of command and putting people into positions of power was no easy feat and Viv was till having a rough time of it. This just reinforced that leaving was the right thing, dealing with so many people and actually getting people to work together was a waste of his time, he had better things to do, like claiming these resources and maybe hunting down some of the opposing armies.

The remaining hours passed quickly with some progress being made on the skill but mostly he was getting impatient and wanting to just move on. There was still an hour left for the claiming when Eric appeared, he had brought a large group with him, all E grades and a mix of human and Elf. Gabe was with him, as was a few others he vaguely recognised but didn’t know well. There was nearly 1000 people that had followed along with Eric and they all looked excited as clearly they hadn’t been sitting for nearly a full day doing nothing.

When Eric finally got close he left everyone but Gabe behind so that they would be able to talk privately. “I owe you for getting me out of that compound so quickly, its chaos back there.”

“It hasn’t been that fun sitting here either.” Shaun looked back at the gathered group of people who all looked like they wanted to move forward to be part of the conversation but held back, probably due to being warned not to interfere with what he was doing.

“This is from Viv.” Eric handed him a bracelet with a stone in it and gestured for him to put it on. “It’s apparently some control item that lets you set different things back at the compound. It also allows for a map to be updated with everywhere you have travelled back in the command centre so that people can plan strategies and track locations. Everything is shut down until you put it on and give other people permission though, Viv was not happy when she found out.”

Shaun had to bite back his laugh at imagining Viv standing in a command room and not being able to do anything because he had run off. After inspecting the bracelet he was confident it was what Eric had said it was and put it on. The moment he did he got a flood of options appear in front of his eyes that he would need to take some time to go through.

Leader Command Options:

Set Delegating Authority

Communications

Compound Resources

Claimed Positions

Personnel Breakdown

Leaderboard

The first thing he did was go in and set authority for Viv and a few others. He gave her as much power as he could so he wouldn’t need to deal with most of these options ever again and then shut it off. He had no interest checking anything else this early on. Things would change a lot in the coming weeks, if not days, going through all of the options now would be painstakingly boring.

“Now what?” He looked at Eric expectantly knowing there was going to be more that needed to be said, and he was right.

“We have a plan from here. Once you finish claiming this area we will hold it with minimal people and then start spreading out so that we can get a good idea of the area. We will wait for you to contact us again and then head to your location when you need us. We have been set as the front line for now, like the message said, the purpose of this first stage is to just claim as much as we can.”

This was pretty much in line with what he expected so he nodded along as Eric spoke. “Depending on what I get for claiming this, if it’s worth it I will claim a few other places, if not I will just locate them and send a message letting you know where to go before moving on.”

Afte the agreed on the way forward Eric asked him if the others could approach and get comfortable which he agreed to, not seeing why they shouldn’t get front row seats to how he claiming worked. After that the topic of conversation changed.

“I never asked, how was the D grade dungeon?”

Shaun spoke through every aspect of the dungeon, including what the aim was and all the different monsters. When he got to speaking about the Wyrm everyone dropped any pretence of eves dropping and looked on in awe.

“You killed a Wyrm and you didn’t get any loot?” Gabe looked distraught at the prospect of fighting in a dungeon and not getting any loot from any of the monsters, especially when you were killing beasts like a Wyrm.

“But the dungeon is cleared so it was worth it. It’s not like he can’t just go back in and fight it again.” Eric replied to Gabe with pure logic and it was true, if he wanted to go back in he could. “What’s the plan for after the event then?”

“Finish raising my skill levels, profession levels and then….I’m not sure. I have a few things I can do and now that the dungeons are finished I can just focus on tying up loose ends.” There were other things he wanted to do, like move the school if he could, but he didn’t vocalise this until he had bartered an agreement with The Empire. “I probably won’t be back at the school much, I built a castle out of the mountain in the D grade area.”

After some exclamations of shock from some of the people around him and a questioning look from Eric the conversation were much more casual and they didn’t speak of anything of importance. When the hour finally came to an end and the claiming finished the bridge materialised out of thin air and with it massive guard houses on each side of the river.

Strategic position (Fortified Bridge) claimed by Shaun Clermont for Shaun Clermont.

1,000 Event points awarded.

When everything appeared there was a lot of yelling and sounds of shock throughout the crowd, all of which he ignored. Instead, what drew his attention was the points. The event points were for the personal leaderboard, but he had no idea if 1,000 was a lot or shit. These would be duplicated as compound points which is what contributed to his side winning the points board for his side, but again he had no idea if it was a lot or little.

Now that the position had been claimed he no longer needed to wait around, the others could inspect it while he moved further towards the enemy line and see what else awaited him.

“Eric, split some people along the river and see if there is any other bridges or weak spots. We need to know on the off chance that we are pushed back this far in the future where we are most vulnerable. I am going to head further in.”

He didn’t bother waiting for confirmation from Eric, he would do what he asked as it was the smart thing to do. He didn’t even bother crossing the bridge, but just shot up into the air and made his way further into the event, away from his compound.

His newly acquired bracelet had also sent him a copy of the notification he got, although without the personal points he acquired. This meant he could track any progress made by his side without needing to rely on communicating with them.

The further he moved from the bridge there was some small changes in the area, although for the most part it just stayed clear and flat. This was ideal for waging a war where both side would be on equal footing. Boredom quickly settled in as he moved and instead of turning to training he thought of the best way to prepare his side for when the fighting truly started.

Ideally, they would want to push into the enemies side rather than fight on their own turf. The aim was to claim the opposing sides compound and if you needed to retreat further into your own side you would be giving the enemy a foothold that would be hard to get back.

The easiest way was to get your side further quicker. But moving millions of people was slow work and couldn’t be rushed. Having a strike team like they were doing would help in getting the lead but only if they could hold their positions. With this in mind Shaun moved just a little bit quicker, wanting to find where the positions to claim turned from bridges or other utility based areas to proper positions that would house armies. If he could find and claim these positions then the bulk of the army could start moving forward and settling closer to the enemy.

After traveling for several more hours he hadn’t found anything though. He kept close watch on the time he was traveling as it would give a good indication of just how long it would take to get from the main compound to the next position. It wasn’t until 6 hours had passed since he left the bridge that he found his next destination.

Frustrated at the distance, it would take a day at least to get from the main compound to this new position, getting reinforcements here on short notice would be impossible, meaning that you had to be smart with your people or you could easily get overrun and be pushed all the way back and lose the event if you weren’t careful. As he dropped to the ground near the new position he found he let out a huff of annoyance at the message.

Strategic position (Inner Fortress) located.

To claim the position for Shaun Clermont you must hold this position for 24 hours without leaving.

Do you wish to claim the position?

Reluctantly he accepted, the sooner this place was claimed the sooner his army could move. This event was turning out to be more annoying than he had expected. Why couldn’t they have just been thrown on two sides of a valley and told to fight it out? He wasn’t even fighting or getting to improve the remainder of his skills. Just traveling, searching and then waiting. The only upside was he got to continue working on his skill upgrade, but even then, if he did the actual upgrade in the event he could be injured to the point he needed to sit out a while. The upside though was if he died he wouldn’t actually be dead.