Hello, players.

While a good portion of you have been playing the game to our standards and are providing meaningful data, there are some players who are refusing to participate in the festivities. We would like to encourage cooperation, but would also like to encourage competition at the same time. Simply put, only one faction can win, but it’s entirely possible that neither faction can beat the game (According to unique faction objectives) within one year’s time.

I have taken the liberty of modifying the Storyweaver AI’s parameters to encourage and facilitate a more balanced game-state in terms of power for both the Gods and the Titans. In the near future, the Titan faction will receive a much-needed boost to level the playing field. In terms of immediate benefit to the Titan faction, Jason (the only Titan aligned player at the moment) will be given a free Guildstone to found his guild. This leads me into the guild update.

We feel it is important that players work together, but also understand that different players will have different personal motivations that may or may not align with that of their faction. This is why I’m excited to introduce the guild system, our first and only major patch coming to Stratus Online for the year-long period of your testing session. Players may now form guilds within their user interface for either 1,000 gold or a rare Guildstone which can be found in some of the more treacherous regions of Stratus. Once a guild is formed, the guild leader will need to declare allegiance to either the Gods or the Titans. This decision is final, and the founder of the guild will be bound by this decision unless changed by an in-game entity. Rest assured, we won’t allow players to flip-flop sides right before the game ends. Players that join a guild will be automatically aligned with the guild’s faction of choice.

If you do decide to start a guild, there is a helpful tutorial that will walk you through the basics of constructing a settlement, attracting settlers and players, and obtaining helpful guild perks and assets for your faction.

We want this to be a fair experience, and with the help of the Storyweaver AI have devised an intricate system to determine a player’s contributions to achieving the end-game goal states of their faction. Players who do not contribute meaningfully will be left behind even if their faction achieves victory before the deadline.

To ensure you are eligible to reclaim your real-world life, you will find a weekly quota of faction renown, guild renown, and fame in the newly added ‘Goals’ tab of your user interface. When you kill monsters, complete quests, and do work for your guild, you will gain points in each of these attributes depending on what category the task fits into. Your status on the ‘Goals’ tab will show whether you are eligible to leave Stratus if your faction is triumphant, so be sure to contribute meaningfully throughout the rest of the year as we move forward. Failure to meet weekly point floors will result in penalties at the end of the game which could prevent you from leaving Stratus.

Faction renown caps at 100 points, guild renown at 200, and fame at 300. If a player decides not to join a guild, they are eligible to fill their guild renown with faction renown or fame instead. We understand some players would prefer to play alone with the help of only NPCs and will allow you to play without a guild. To give everyone a fair start, the weekly quota of points in the ‘Goals’ tab will reset one week from today. You have all been given max points for this week as a gift from me.

Finally, to facilitate these changes effectively and to make Stratus a smaller place for the players all over the game world, we’re implementing a player mail feature. Players can send personalized instant messages to one another (without item or currency attachments) for 10 gold. You’ll find the messaging feature in the ‘Social’ tab of your user interface.

Jerry.

I finished reading and re-read the entire letter again. Jason was getting a boost, and that was the last thing we needed. It made sense that Jerry would want to boost the Titan faction, after all, we had just dealt them a crushing blow by killing Jason and returning the first core crystal to Ectos. There was no telling what the other player groups had done to help the other Gods and Goddesses as well. For now at least, my faction was winning. With the first and only guild in Stratus and the promise of a much-needed buff, it seemed like Jason would get started on his building his guild right away. There was no reason not to, and while it sucked he’d be sweeping out potential allies from us, it would be nice to have a little breathing room without constantly worrying Jason would be skulking around a corner with more of his Titanspawn pets. The last thing we needed right now was to fight him. I had a feeling he’d be a lot more powerful the next time we met up.

I checked my Goals tab and wasn’t surprised to see I was automatically faction aligned with the Gods, the same was probably true for my friends as well.

“What is it, Edwin? You’ve had a horribly blank look on your face for the past few minutes,” Clarence questioned.

“Uhh, I can’t really explain it. We just got a message from the forces running this world. The Titan faction is going to get stronger, and there are also new guild features coming to Stratus. If we have 1000 gold or a Guildstone, we’ll be able to found a guild and build our own settlement to benefit us and our faction,” I said.

Clarence scratched his chin. “I see, I’ve heard of the guild system, but there haven’t been any real guilds with links to the Otherworld Realms in hundreds of years. You’re sure they’re coming back? That would mean both the Gods and Titans are gaining a greater foothold on Stratus which is both good and bad. Perhaps the Titans found a new way to access the continent of Thrael. We don’t have the funds to start a guild right now, and even if we did, it seems like Ectos would prefer we go to Brigstone for the time being.”

“Yeah, you’re right, but it’s something to look into for the future. Once we meet up with my friend and get the location of the next core crystals, we might consider forming our guild. Jason, that Titanic creep that killed you was gifted a Guildstone from the Titans and is probably forming his faction as we speak,” I said, once again returning to my coffee.

“Edwin, did you see this letter?” Gaz called as he jumped down from his room in the massive wagon. Kirsten and John followed behind him.

I nodded. “Grab some coffee and we can talk about it.”

My friends took mugs and Clarence happily filled their mugs with steaming coffee. While it was already hot outside, it wasn’t too hot for coffee, and it was better than any of the rations we had on hand. I reached down to my belt at my Bag of Breading. The bag was crafted from simple, double-stitched linen and was infused with just the right amount of magic. I pulled up the item description.

Bag of Breading

Magical. Bag.

Dur: 100/100

Once per day a character can pull one loaf of bread from this bag. The bread magically appears and varies in type. Any non-living thing placed inside of the Bag of Breading will be covered in a delicious golden-fried breading when retrieved.

I reached in and grabbed my loaf for the day--sourdough. As far as I could tell, my weight was actually shifting on a daily basis depending on how much I ate. Since Clarence’s mules couldn’t pull all of us extremely long distances, we were doing a lot of walking and eating a lot. Surprisingly, the upgrades to Clarence’s wagon which basically turned it into a mobile home weighed even less than my suit of heavy armor. I munched on the bread absently and even considered dipping it in my coffee.

“Are we close to any towns or villages?” John asked. “I’m getting tired of the road and not seeing anyone for days.”

“A couple days out from the town of Briarthorn,” Clarence said. “We’ll probably stop there for the night and see if there’s anything worth buying other than just more rations and drinking water, but I wouldn’t expect too much. We still need to get you upgraded, and Edwin seems to want a new sword so he can use a shield as well.”

“What he needs to do is spend his damn points and actually upgrade his class,” Gaz grumbled. I shot him a flat look, too tired to put up with his nagging right now. He'd been nagging me all week.

“I told you I’m going to spend some soon. You’ve seen my notebook, I’m trying my best to optimize my build and I’m waiting to see if I learn new abilities.”

Gaz shook his head. “It’s so simple, Edwin. Just put a few points into your astral power and couple other anchor skills you want to base your kit around. Regardless, no matter what you learn, you’re going to need astral power to fuel it. At least a couple points.”

“Again, I want to optimize my class, and if I don’t build this right then I’m really going to mess everything up for later when it’s more important. Until we’re actually facing dangerous content, there’s no reason to rush into things and spend my points,” I said. It sounded better in my head, but when I said it, I could start to see the cracks in my argument. In a way, I suppose I was holding back because of how terrified I was of our situation. Gaz had always been the cornerstone of our group, leading us through fights, yet I was hesitant to trust him after how horribly things had almost gone with the first fight with Jason. Now, Kirsten’s life was really at stake in a way worse than ours. If we messed up and didn’t see her through her oath, she would die for good, and really be lost forever. I didn’t want anything to do with that, but it seemed like not doing anything with building my character wasn’t the correct thing to do either.

“I swear, Edwin. We’re trying to get our lives back, and you’re seriously holding us back. You’re normally a better gamer than this,” Gaz shot.

“Really, Gaz? This is hardly a game anymore, our lives are at stake here, and Kirsten here is in even more danger than the rest of us. You think we can afford mistakes?”

“You think we can afford to do nothing?” he yelled. “This isn’t a game, so you need to stop being a bitch and spend your points. Anything is better than the walking liability you are on the battlefield right now. You get sick when you fight, can’t manage your abilities or resources, and almost died from a couple kobolds using pickaxes. Or did you forget about the pickaxe that went through your stupid face? The miniature bastards actually held you down and pried your helmet open while you flailed on your back like a helpless turtle. I had to spend all of my mana healing that wound, it was horrible and shouldn’t have happened in the first place. You left me without any mana to heal the rest of the party, and that’s a big no-no. I even had to tank for the rest of the fight because you were too busy writhing in your own blood on the ground from a bunch of low-level xp fodder. If you aren’t going to spend your points, we’d be better without you.”

“Come on, Gaz, that isn’t fair,” Kirsten urged, trying to defuse the situation, but it was only getting worse.

“You know what? I’m going to take a walk before I decide to kill you, Gaz.”

Gaz laughed. “You do that, Edwin. Think about how to spend your damn character points and decide if you want to fight me. I’ll probably tap you with my hammer and you’ll fall over and bleed to death on the ground. Good thinking,” he huffed.

I stormed off and grabbing my two hand sword from my room in the wagon and attaching it to my back, not caring to say anything else. Kirsten was talking with Gaz, probably about me while John hurried after me. “Edwin, wait up!”

“John, just leave me alone, I don’t want to talk right now, I need to cool off.”

The lanky Klor effortlessly ran to catch up with me. Even if I wanted to outrun him, there was no way I could. His agility was insanely high, and he was by far the quickest in our group, even as an unconventional, range/melee hybrid. "Even if you just spend a couple character points on astral power, it would go a long way in making things better with Gaz. Everyone is stressed out about this whole situation and we’re all handling it in different ways. We need to stick together now more than ever.”

“I’m not spending anything yet, I’ve almost figured it out, I promise,” I said.

“I know, but it’s been over a week, and Gaz does have a point about you being a liability to the entire group in fights. I also see where you’re coming from. All the rest of us only have one primary stat with endurance acting as a secondary stat. You have three primary stats. Sure cunning and luck can influence a couple of my abilities, but I really only have to worry about maxing my agility, and I might put some points into intellect later if I decide to go the mage-blade route. I’m normally not a ranger, but this crossbow is fun to use.”

“Exactly. I don’t see why Gaz doesn’t get that. I need willpower, strength, and endurance. I don’t know if I should max willpower and tank with Astral Armor, or just go the traditional route of stacking endurance and strength at the cost of willpower. It’s a triangle, and I’m not sure I can have everything and play my class well. It seems like building in the middle would really limit me, and if I pick a corner, then I’m either going to be really squishy when my Astral Armor is down, or I’m not going to do any damage. I need some willpower no matter what for astral power to spend on abilities, and it influences most of my other abilities as well. I would never have taken this stupid class if I knew how complicated it would be to build. It makes you miss things like build guides from pro players.”

“Well, we do have a lot of pro gamers stuck in the world with us. I know we’re good, but I understand why you’re struggling with your build. What if we looked up a pro and pay them a consulting fee to build your class for you? I think even Gaz would be willing to cough up a couple hundred gold for that if it meant getting you back in on the action in a meaningful way.”

“Maybe so,” I agreed. “Then again, that’s a ton of gold we might need for later, and we’d need to be sure whoever we hired wasn’t aligned with the Titans. The last thing we need is to be funneling gold to their cause.”

“Speaking of which, how do you think the cities and kingdoms of the game are going to get involved in all of this? Do you think they’ll finance guilds and factions to try to fund what they believe is a favorable outcome to all of this?” John asked.

“That’s a question for you,” I said, laughing. “You’re kinda the macro economics guru of the group. In my opinion, everyone in this world, including the NPCs, seem to have their own goals, ambitions, and values. They all want something different, and I think our two or three hundred gold to pay a pro to build your class would be a drop in the bucket compared to the amount of gold that’s going to go into this war.”

John nodded. “If I didn’t want to get my life back so badly, I probably would take up profiteering and try to play both factions off of each other. I’m just trying to do right by Kirsten, you know? I hate that Stratus Labs would do that to her, and it’s so messed up that they stopped you from telling her we’re all AI clones.” John shook his head. “So messed up.”

“Yeah, I’m really sorry about that. You know I would have told her if the Storyweaver AI didn’t stop me, right?”

“Of course I know that, Edwin. You’re a good friend. Gaz is too, and I know he means well, but you and I both know how he gets when he’s stressed or frustrated and thankfully that doesn’t happen very often. Could you please put a couple points into Astral Power? It really would do more than you think, and after looking over your class kit with you a few times, I’m sure you’re going to need some more astral power no matter what route you decide to go. Don’t worry about the attribute points and save most of your character points if you want. Just please upgrade Astral Power to rank two.”

“I can do that,” I said, pulling up my character sheet. 32 unspent character points, 7 unspent attribute points. I examined Astral Power.

Astral Power (Rank 0): Each rank in Astral Power gives the character extra points in astral power equal to their willpower modifier, 1% higher astral power regeneration, and 1% stronger spells and abilities for each point of astral power spent in an encounter.

Taking a deep breath, I spent three of my 32 character points to bring Astral Power up to rank two and raise my astral power resource bar from five points to seven. “I only gained two astral power from that,” I grumbled.

“Hmm. Move your willpower to seven, it should cost you two attribute points. Save the rest, but that should bring you up to nine astral power instead of seven. The modifier for the lowest tier of a stat seems to be one, and if you move willpower to Seven which is the next tier up, you will double your willpower modifier.”

I nodded and spent the attribute points, not wanting my initial investment to go to waste. My astral power climbed to nine points after I finalized the spend. John was probably right, it was worth investing at least that, even if I didn’t know which direction I was going to go on building my class. Now that we were starting to level and gain access to new spells and abilities, I envied my friends and their classless progression. They seemed to be free to build whatever they wanted while I was more or less trapped within the confines of my Warpguard class. Maybe I had just been doing so terrible in combat that I hadn’t discovered anything new yet. I still had my fighter-like Second Wind ability and learned Swords and Heavy Armor as well, but those felt a lot more general and things like that wouldn’t be restricted by my new class.

“Great, looks like it worked! That will buy you some time with Gaz,” John said. “Maybe you’ll even feel better when we’re fighting too. Willpower seems to be really important to your class, and maybe using your abilities taxes your willpower and mental endurance as you use them.”

“Maybe so,” I agreed.

“You two ready to hit the road?” Clarence asked. The goblin mage was suddenly behind us.

“God, Clarence! I hate when you do that!” John shouted, sheathing the dagger he’d instinctively drawn.

“Sorry. Teleportation is the fastest way to get around, you know.”

“That being the case, you could at least do us the courtesy of teleporting in front of us so you don’t get your throat cut by mistake,” John said.

“That’s no fun. Besides, I wouldn’t let that happen. I’d sooner turn you into a --”

“Pumpkin. Yeah, got it,” John said, shaking his head and laughing. John was trying to act angry, but he was clearly amused by Clarence’s character quirks.

“Sorry about that, Edwin,” Gaz said as we returned to the camp. “Thanks for spending a couple points on astral power and upping your willpower. I saw the changes on the party overlay.”

I nodded. “I’m sorry, too. I’ll work on spending more points as we go. John and I discussed trying to find a pro gamer to build my class for me.”

That set Gaz in a foul mood. I should have seen it coming. To him, he was just as good if not better than anyone else in the competition. He shook his head, clearly about to get into it again. “Seriously? I already offered to build your class for you and you turned me down. What makes any of our opponents better than me at building your class? And you’d spend our hard earned gold to do that when I’ll do it for free?”

“I’m just saying there are some good theorycrafters in the game, and as long as they’re aligned with our faction, the gold would probably be well spent.”

“Not all of us have the gear we want. Ectos didn’t give us a bunch of handouts like he did to you. Now you want to spend all our gold after you’ve already been gifted a badass suit of full plate armor and a legendary class? What have you done with your gifts, Edwin? You’ve done nothing. I for one want something better than this chainmail and maybe even want to start our own guild once we have the coin.”

“I’m tired of this bullshit, Gaz. I don’t want to fight with you. Believe it or not, you’re not the best gamer in the competition, and you never can seem to admit it when someone is better than you,” I seethed.

“Enough!” Kirsten yelled. “We’re getting back on the road, and you two need to keep your distance until you’re ready to play nice. I’m not going to make you apologize to each other because I know you won’t mean it. We’re not going to get anywhere if our party is in shambles, and all this fighting is making me sick.”

I nodded. I felt bad for what this was doing to Kirsten, and Gaz did have some good points. So did I. Neither one of us was 100% right, and we were both too stubborn to admit it. I’d never fought with Gaz before like this, and I hated it. I never questioned whether or not we’d be friends for the rest of our lives before now, but I was now. There wasn’t even a clear path to recovery, and our fights were getting worse and laying a trail of shattered bonds through our friendship which felt like it was coming to an end. Trying and failing to put the thoughts and emotions behind me, I helped the others pack up our camp and get the wagon ready for travel. It was going to be a long day.