Several bored soldiers and one bored Captain watched the arrival zone. They didn't expect problems, but they were soldiers in the Emperors Legion and they'd taken an oath to protect his lands from enemies within and without - even in this backwater in the middle of nowhere. And even against these "Players" who were appearing in the fortress next to the statue of Emperor Viconis. The current Emperor was the 9th to bear the name of Viconis; the statue was of the 6th. Having met neither man the Captain couldn't say if they bore a resemblance to each other. His great-grandfather had served the 6th as he served the 9th. So far, all of the Players had behaved themselves, and some had even been polite. But they'd been warned this would not always be the case.

Once again the air shimmered and a group of Players arrived. Five this time, dressed in assorted bits of cheap armor with grins on their faces. Before any of them did anything stupid, Captain Falcar greeted them with a salute and said the words he'd already said a dozen times today.

"Welcome travelers. I greet you in the name of the Empire of Lasitania. You are in the northern province of Grultain, near the village of Sedgewick. This outpost is known as Rowan Keep. It is maintained by the 89th Legion. Feel free to look around and talk to our people. You will find an assortment of craftsmen and trainers. There are also some mechants by the back gates who maintain a small trading post. If you are interested in joining the Legion, talk to Sgt. Julius in the armory. We do not provide lodging or food unless you have joined up as a recruit. You may find the town of Hurlsford more to your liking. It is twenty miles to the east. The village of Sedgewick is closer, only ten miles away, to the north, but much smaller. Both locations are now marked on your maps. Do you have any questions?"

"Yep, anything to hunt around here? Need some quick cash." The speaker was a grizzled looking warrior wearing metal guantlets, plated leather greaves, heavy boots and strangely, no shirt or helmet at all. His companions were attired more traditionally. One female human was in basic heavy armor and held a mace, a holy symbol around her neck proclaiming her to be of a religious order. A small man in leather and a dark cloak was trying to juggle his three daggers, and not doing a bad job. An elven bowman in garb of lincoln green was smiling as he looked around the keep. A second woman, quite tall with heavy muscles, was trying to get the knack of drawing the greatsword on her back. The group all had an older look to them with greying hair, small scars, and a few wrinkles.

Unrolling a scroll, a nearby scribe spoke up: "There's still the wolfpack in the Hollywood that needs dealing with Captain. Pay is two silver a person if the group presents us with ten wolf pelts; two more silver if they kill the alpha wolf with the scarred face. The farmers are complaining about that one getting their cattle. "

"That will do; we'll take it," the shirtless leader of the group declared. "Time to make our mark on the world. "

"I like their enthusiasm, but what an odd name for a guild: Aussie Old Farts" The captain turned to address the next group of arrivals and the prior one jogged out the front gate. But it turned out that he'd seen the next group just an hour before. They were respawning after picking on something bigger than them. This happened a lot to some groups.

One by one they appeared, glassy eyed and exhausted, showing the signs of recent revival. "My foot! The damn thing chewed on my foot! And my nuts still hurt." ... "What the hell was that, it shouldn't be in a starter zone." ... "Easy EP you said. Dammit, quit starting fights we can't win. You did the same thing in the last game."

"Well, sounds like they don't need the opening speech. Let's move on to the 'Ok, you died. What's nex' speech." Falcar had given that one a lot more than he had the Welcome Speech. They needed to take it easy for some time. He recommended plenty of hydration and a bit of rest to get over the large debuff they would endure for a few hours. They probably hadn't earned any skills or levels yet so he'd better warn them about that penalty too.

The guild members of AOF didn't have far to travel until they came upon the signs of combat. Blood was smearing in the trampled grass that surrounded four headstones. Players had died here, and recently. The timer on the headstones was at 23:42:31 when he looked at one, so they'd died only a few minutes ago. Any money or valuables they were carrying were stored in the headstone for 24 hours and could be retrieved with a touch. Most of your gear would stay with you. And of course anything dropped during the battle just sat there on the ground. In this case that was two daggers of low quality and a boot. Nearby a largish cow was cropping the thick grass. It had several cuts and slashes on it's body but didn't seem to be bothered by them.

"Wonder what the hell happend?" Manwar moved around the area, picking up the daggers and adding them to his collection, but leaving the boot. Monger tried on the boot. It didn't fit but he tossed it in his backpack anyway. The archer, Greenberg, was pretending he was a high enough tracker to make sense out of the trampled and bloody grass. "Not enough clues to tell. The cow is injured, which seems suspicious, but I can't imagine one cow doing all this."

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"Lets kill the cow! Easy EP," and not waiting for his friends, the halfling rogue moved to do just that. He wasn't above slaughtering farm animals, especially early in the game. It was always a contest for him as to who could get the most experience. You snooze you lose.

Both daggers out he moved up behind the cow preparing to leap to it's back and execute a doublestrike, maybe even get a critical. Either way, he'd keep stabbing unil he took it out solo. This cow was going down.

"Backstab!" was barely out of his mouth as his leap took a detour. Without raising it's head from the sedge, the cow's left rear hoof lashed out, catching the rogue in the crotch. A high-pitched scream was heard as he was launched into the air. His body curled into a ball as he moved in a shallow arc and hit the ground. Both daggers were flung from him, as was one boot.

His group was laughing themselves silly. They always hung back at the start of any game because the idiot did this every time. Sometimes it was poisoning a bartender, mugging a drunkard in an alley, or backstabbing someone in a bar fight. But more often than not he found a stable and killed all the horses. He often got caught, which is when the fun started. This time around was a classic - one-shotted by a cow while trying a backstab? Awesomesauce.

The cow moved over to the fallen thief, and without much pre-amble, bent it's head down and bit off his naked foot along with a bit of sedge grass. The rogue's moans turned to a scream and he tried to simultaneously cradle his broken nuts while moving away from the cow chewing on what used to be his foot.

His horrified group wasn't prepared to let him actually die to a cow and prepared for battle. Two arrows were launched by the half orc scout, but with a poor quality shortbow, 2 Dex and 0 Skill in archery, the shots lacked much of the power needed to penetrate the cows thick hide. The Warrior fared better, his sword leaving a shallow slash along the beast's flank. The beast decided it could finish the halfling later, and turned to the warrior, biting a chunk out of his thigh. This was enough for the cleric. Cancelling the heal she had been channeling, the dwaven cleric unleased her HOLY SMITE ability hoping to kill the creature which, after all, was just a farm animal.

The effect was devastating. Not against the beast, although it was hurt and smoking a bit. But it's demeanor went through a startling change. Where once was a drowsy cud chewer there now stood a flaming-eyed, murderous killer. Its nostrils belched stinking smoke as it bellowed and charged at the cleric. Of course, the warrior got in the way, and for his bravery got impaled on a horn. Unable to detatch himself, he went along for the ride. The enraged Sedgebeast reached the cleric and bit off her right arm making sure that no more spells would be cast. The half orc tried to get off a shot, but failed to even hit the beast before it knocked him down and began to trample him. Within a minute the fight was over. The sedgebeast took meaty bites from their bodies until they disappeared, its own wounds healing rapidly. And then it went back to eating the sedge grass. By the time the members of AOF came upon it, it had forgotten the incident.

A couple of hours later they had located the wolfpack and dealt with it. The Alpha once again eluding capture or death. Monger was needing quite a bit of first-aid work done to his naked chest. It had seemed like a good idea to invest in the best armor you could buy and put a set togethere one piece at a time. The wolves hadn't been able to do much to his legs. As soon as they realized that though, they concentrated on his top half.

After a bit of patching up with some bandages they got moving. They returned with the hides, gathered their silver and decided to head to the village of Sedgewick before it got dark. The journey was interesting, but uneventful.

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Ben started to speak when his coin was snatched from the air. But a voice from the door was louder than his feeble protest. "Don't be an ass, Monger. Stealing from a poor peasant?"

The Warrior smiled and flipped the penny back to Ben. "Just joking around a bit, Helga, keep them panties unbunched." He stuck out his hand to Ben and they shook. "Sorry, just taking the piss. Tell you what, I'll buy a round and you can tell me about this quaint village and where we can find someone named Billy. My group is supposed to do some scouting for him. That's Manwar with the dagger collection. Helga is our healer. Greenberg thinks he's a ranger and that's Pansy with the big sword on her back. "

"HEY BILLY! , someone here to see you" . Rory loved the HELP system.

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Billy was showing a map to his group of Players/Scouts. "We're here in the village, and you're familiar with the Keep down here a few miles to the south. I'm mostly interested in what's north, east, and west of us. I suspect the area around the Keep is going to be a prime area for beginner quests and too busy to be of interest."

"Pretty much correct on that. We went looking for a pack of wolves and made a full sweep of the area before we found them. Saw a lot of small farms with rabbit and fox infestations, a giant boar chasing a fisherman along a river, a creepy old man with a lantern on a stick at the crossroads, and a dark, two-story house with dirty windows and a lot of smoke coming from the chimney. Might go back later, but we came here after dealing with the wolves and getting a bit of pocket change for beer." Manwar seemed to be the leader of the AOF guild. Billy was happy to see they had sent someone confident. Many Players would have done quests for days before reporting in and still not provide such a coherent report. After a brief talk, they went off to scout the immediate area and Billy got back to figuring out how to most quickly build the ACME Corporation Regional Headquarters.

Of course, Billy wasn't the only one working on this project. He was competing with a couple dozen other 'Employee Liaisons' to be the first to construct a suitably large headquarters and get enough commerce going to be selected as a Regional Head of Commerce.

The problem was, this village sucked for resources. Small stands of hardwoods, mostly Holly, were scattered around but not enough to really build what he need. And he needed that wood for smoking the sedgebeast meat. The stuff was horrible until smoked over a Hollywood fire. The meat was greasy and tasted like ass. By contrast, once smoked for a couple of weeks it had a somewhat tolerable flavor. Luckily, the Legion wasn't picky. They wanted well preserved meat, nothing in his contract said it had to taste good.

Hopefully there was a good outcropping of building stone nearby. With enough stone and wood he could get started on a passable set of buildings.

Otherwise, things weren't going too badly. Time to log out while the players slept in-game. He planned a conference with his boss, an overview of new game data, and hopefully a nice dinner before sleep in a real bed. He was not sleeping on the ground wrapped in a thin blanket.