1.24

[You have been deemed as a series of incompatible errors by the System. Please stand by...]

A nervous fluttering filled the air after the System’s decree. Not, as you might expect, because the surrounding crowd was afraid of the notification. No, the fear in the hearts of the little green men was solely fixated on Rocky and his golems.

They gazed upon his glorious visage with undisguised fear. To be conquered by another green man tribe might mean assimilation. Or it might mean death. What would these rock creatures do to them?

Rocky, for his part, stood silently in the center of it all, fixated on the glowing screen permeating his only eye. The green men had finally pieced together the fact that he was in charge, and looked on in trepidation as they awaited his verdict.

But as the initial silence dragged on for seconds, then minutes, the little green men began to shift. First, out of fear, then out of hope. ‘Could it be that the rocks meant to let them go?’

The bravest among them walked towards the gate. Rather, it would be more accurate to say that he was pushed towards the gate by the considerably less brave members of his tribe. Nervously, terrified of the consequences, he crept towards the gate, eyeing the unmoving iron golem that still stood at the opening.

Closer… closer… and he was out! Slipping past the hulking monstrosity, he ran, free, and into the open field. Seeing this, his fellows began to slip by as well, now that the way had proven relatively safe. Better to leave than to die here at the hands of the rocks, after all.

#####

Meanwhile, Rocky had been inundated with a laundry list of error messages, each one taking issue with his, well, existence.

[Error: No mana source found]

[Error: Class detected]

[Contact with mana source detected]

[Minimum requirements met, please select a class]

[Present contact with- ERROR]

[Class Dete- Please select a -

...

The System seemed to give up. Issues with his class, evolution, and even his identity as a rock were called into question, yet Rocky didn’t budge from his place at the center of the green man camp. The System that he so enjoyed was calling him an error, and the fact alone devastated his sensibilities.

He had seen these words before, of course. The [error] messages had been an ever present part of his existence. But never had they called his very existence an error. At least, not while he could understand it, anyway.

His Status page felt like a betrayal, the notifications the means, motive, and mechanism of the crime. Crumpling to the ground, he waited for something.

For what? He didn’t know.

Several minutes passed before the System spoke again.

[System failed to properly diagnose issue. Assigning a guide. Please stand by...]

Harold turned his gazed upwards as a green mass of light descended from the sky.

#####

“What the actual FUCK are you?” The little green light darted around, far above Rocky’s head. Providence from the System? Or perhaps it spelled his doom? Rocky didn’t move from his place on the ground.

The green light floated its way towards him, until it was hovering just in front of his singular eye. It looked like a small human to him, darting around in a frantic, mesmerizing dance.

Rocky could make out its features now, too. It resembled a female human, Rocky realized, its slender build resembling Amber far more than it did Harold. If not for the pointy ears and wings, he might have simply assumed it to be a human hatchling, draped in a dainty green dress that wrapped around her entire body.

The little humanoid looked just about as thrilled to be there as Rocky had been to see his error messages. She had her small arms crossed over its chest, a pouting expression permeating her entire face.

“Why am I even here? You’re a couple months too early, bucko.”

“What… What are you?” Rocky asked with genuine curiosity. There were very few creatures near this camp that could converse with him in full sentences, save for those from his party. Actually, now that he thought about it, all the green men had spoken in broken sentences that even [Language Interpretation] seemed to find hard to translate.

She put her right hand on her face, sighing into her palm. “Right back atcha' buddy. But first off, I’m a sprite. I’m supposed to help players who have built towns after the tutorial.”

Rocky brightened considerably. “Oh! I have a town!” At last, she was speaking his language. A helper for his town? Yes please!

The sprite stared at him with dull, brown, uncomprehending eyes. “You… you have a WHAT? Oh nonononono this is a cruel joke, isn’t it? It has to be.” Both hands were on her face now, and she looked to be on the brink of hysteria.

“Amber says deep breaths help when you’re nervous.”

“Amber sa- what? Shut up! Sorry, I meant please kindly close whatever orifice you’re using to speak. I beg of you. Just let me sulk!” The sprite did several frantic circles in the air. “Dad always said that contracting with the system was a bad idea, and I didn’t listen, now look where…”

The sound of her voice faded off, and for several minutes, the little sprite did laps around the camp, until finally coming to a stop once more, just in front of Rocky’s eye. “Whew, that’s a little better. Sort of. So you said you had a… town?”

Rocky nodded. “I used [Claim Area] to claim it, so now I own a clearing.” Surely the sprite would be impressed with his land-owning skills.

The sprite seemed to hyperventilate at that. “So let me get this straight.” Rocky opened his mouth to ask what getting straight had to do with any of this. “No. No talking. Let me talk, okay? They assign me to a rock. A talking rock. Who somehow owns a town in the tutorial. Which ISN’T something you can do, by the way!”

“Unbelievable, unbelievable! It’s actually unbelievable! Are you even capable of dying? Cause I’m tied to you and your settlement until you do. Can rocks die? Don’t they just go through a cycle and become rocks again? Fuuuuuuuuck.” She was droopy now. “And here I thought I was doing a good job making my bosses like me.”

The sprite turned back to Rocky. “So what makes your skills so special that they can bypass System law?”

Rocky just stood there, silently. “Well? Spit it out!” He gestured to his mouth, making a zipping motion with his fingers. “Okay okay, you can talk, please spit it out.”

He pondered the question for the moment. “The only thing special about my status is that sometimes my skills are Nobilis skills, instead of regular. The system doesn’t tell me what that means, though.”

“You… you’re a Nobilis? Hold on, let me see your Status page. Please.” The sprite’s eyes gleamed with hope now, far removed from the moping, depressed form she had portrayed just a minute prior.

Rocky shared his page, and the sprite’s eyes nearly popped out of their sockets. “How is your class at Mythic II at level eighteen? That makes absolutely no sense..” She trailed off, thoughtfulness taking the place of excitement.

“Ah, yeah, that makes sense.” The sprite bowed, her small frame being at ninety degrees as her green wings kept her aloft. “My name is Alina, pleased to meet your acquaintance. I’m a system-designated Sprite helper, whose job it is to advise the owners of settlements following the tutorial.”

Rocky stared at the floating sprite, confused at her sudden change in rhetoric. “Why did you respond like that after I told you about being a Nobilis?”

She rubbed her small hands together. “Because it means that you’re my ticket to the big leagues, kid. A Nobilis is one of the most powerful beings within the System, and a System helper’s power is limited only by the strength and influence of their patron.”

“But I thought that you only appeared to people who owned towns? What happens if there’s someone super strong who doesn’t have one?”

Alina nodded along, now seemingly content to answer all of his questions. “It’s very rare that that’s the case. Power begets power, after all, and the weak will always coalesce around the strong. But yes, those individuals won’t have sprites to guide them. Though at that point, they’ll be knowledgeable enough to not really need us.”

“But why appear now?” Every answered question seemed to bring out two more. “I founded my town a day ago. I’ve already been betrayed by pointy eared people once today.” He gestured to the corpses of the green men, still littered about around the camp.

“Did you just compare me to goblins?!” With a shriek of outrage, the sprite flew close to his face, beating the surface with her comically small fists. “I’ll have you know that I am a limitless fount of information! Unfettered by the laws of your puny, mortal realm.

"So then why?"

She stopped hitting him, looking a little put off by the question. “I… don’t actually know for sure. My best guess is that you’re a walking [Error] message, and that someone needs to straighten this whole mess out. Problem is, none of the System’s higher ups can actually contact you or interfere here. They’d have to wait until you hit the higher tiers before the rules would let them speak with you.”

“So why send you? Why not a lower level administrator or someone else? You specialize in advising town leaders, right?”

The sprite seemed to be getting a little exasperated. “Right. But the problem is, no one can straighten this out right now, because no one except the System Sprite helpers can actually reach you. And that’s only theoretically possible. Remember how the rules say no one is able to found a town or village in the Tutorial?”

“So it’s just an enormous… loophole?” Rocky really liked that word, loophole. Harold had used it once when talking about fighting monsters. He didn’t really know how something could simultaneously be a loop, and a hole. Unless there were swirly-edged holes? Rocky shook his head, he was getting off track.

“Yup! Basically, they screwed over a Sprite helper, that’s me, in order to try and sort this entire mess out before it escalates.”

Rocky nodded. He was happy with this outcome. After all, he had come into this conversation hoping to have a helper for his town, and now he had one.

The sprite looked similarly happy about their arrangement, happily humming to herself as she lazily floated around Rocky’s head. “So, is this your town?” She gestured to the surrounding wooden structures, eyes landing on the gate, now a shattered wreck.

“Of course not! What kind of settlement of mine would have this much wood? We came here on an expedition to find a source of mineable stone, and we found it! My town will have much less wood, and many more rocks.”

“Ah, of course! As expected of a Nobilis, to have so easily established a settlement of his own.” She gave one of the jagged rocks that comprised Rocky’s body a hug. “A settlement of stone, is it? Then lead the way home, meal ticket.”

Thus, they began the journey back, all in high spirits.

#####

Harold’s fighting spirit was about as low as it could possibly be. The Kobold encampment was placed next to a rapidly flowing stream, such that any attack from two of the four possible directions, would see the attackers be forced to wade through flowing water before making their assault.

The good news was that Harold and Amber were placed on the side of the camp that the river didn’t cover. The bad news? They were on the side of the camp that the river didn’t cover.

Perhaps the demands of fortifications to defend all sides of their base would have forced the Kobolds to spread out their efforts evenly, but as things stood, only half of the base stood exposed, and so boasted twice the defenses that they would normally.

A wooden wall that looked altogether too sturdy encompassed the outer reaches of their camp. Inside, smaller shacks and living quarters could be seen, Kobolds milling around and going about their day.

Unfortunately for Harold’s party, their business was war, and the monsters could be seen sharpening weapons, sending out patrols, and foraging food.

On top of that were the palisades lining the wall, sturdy archer towers that studded the encampment’s outermost stretches, and the ever present guards that held the gate. This would not be an easy camp to destroy.

The dilemma, however, was that they had to destroy it. It was so close to their clearing that it was no small wonder miracle that they hadn’t happened upon Kobold patrols prior to now.

The group backed their way further into the treeline, and began to formulate the beginnings of a plan.

“My first thought is just to summon the biggest fireball I can. Just burn them all to death, and then storm the gates with Rocky’s golems to clean up.”

Harold frowned. “What happens if you miss though? My dumbass already asked you to fireball a couple birds, and that landed us in this mess in the first place. What happens when they don’t all die and chase us down?”

Amber shook her head. “You’ve seen Rocky’s golems fight since his evolution. They’re far too strong for the level we’re at. The Kobolds probably don’t have anything that could even scratch them, considering your strongest blow only left a dent in one.”

He sighed. “Alright. Either way, we’ll have to get back to the clearing.”

The group headed back in considerably duller spirits than when they had left.