Spiteful Healer

Chapter 130: Terms of Service

“So.” Aegis spoke to Celestian and Farlion as they sat across the round table from him in the Rene town hall that afternoon. Aegis’s stream was still turned off, and he made the rounds around the room to close the dark blue curtains on all of the windows, then made sure the door was securely locked.

“Is something the matter, sir? Celestian asked him respectfully.

“No, no problems. It’s just, your true potential is currently being restricted. And I’m aiming to remove that restriction from the both of you. You must’ve been frustrated, losing to that gnoll raider, no?” Aegis asked Farlion, and he nodded. “And I bet you have a strong desire to grow, in order to protect Clara and Savika.” Aegis motioned to Celestian.

“I regret not being strong enough to save Arallia.” Celestian put his head down to hide his frustration.

“Well, fear not. I have discovered the secret to unlocking your potential. But first, I must determine if you are both ready or not. You must be willing to do anything to reach this goal. Are you both prepared?” Aegis asked them as he took a seat across from them and put his hands together in front of his mouth, elbows leaning on the table.

“I am prepared.”

“I am ready.” They both answered with a sparkle of determination in their eyes. Aegis could see it, they were both exhibiting signs that they had many personality traits already developed. But they weren’t quite there yet, they didn’t have free will to act on their own. They were still stuck on the script.

“Ok. Answer these questions as fast as you can.” Aegis took a deep breath, glancing between them. There was a slight tension building in the air as Aegis paused, and they stared back at him with utmost focus. “Favorite color?” Aegis asked. The two of them were taken aback for a moment, suddenly looking confused.

“Is… that one of the questions?” Farlion confirmed.

“Yes, come on, quickly, we’ve got a lot to go through.” Aegis snapped his finger impatiently at them.

“Uh, blue.” Farlion replied.

“Red.” Celestion said.

“Favorite food.” Aegis asked immediately after. They both glanced at each other hesitantly. “Come on,” Aegis clapped his hands aggressively. “I made a list of traits and preferences you guys probably need, it's long, let’s go!” He rushed them.

“Raddishes.” Farlion answered hesitantly.

“Scorpish Soup.” Celestian replied.

“Good. Favorite weather.” Aegis asked, this time they both answered more quickly. “Favorite Instrument. Parents' names? What were their jobs? Where did they hail from? Any siblings?” Aegis went through the questions quickly, and the two guards answered without hesitation from henceforth. This went on for nearly an hour. Aegis had a parchment he pulled out of his inventory where he had written down all of the basic personality traits that typical AI’s nowadays used to form a basic personality emulation, and was asking questions related to all of them to make sure both Farlion and Celestian had data that fit into every slot.

“Okay.” Aegis said once he’d reached the bottom of the list. “You guys are primed and ready to reach your true potential. If there were any missing traits before, you’ve just been forced to develop them.” Aegis said proudly as he stood up. “Now all that we’re missing is the triggering event.” He rubbed his hands together excitedly.

“But, all we’ve done so far is answer mundane questions. Are you sure that was enough?” Celestian asked him curiously.

“I’m sure. Look at you, asking me questions on your own, you’re basically the finished product.” Aegis motioned to him with a grin, causing him and Farlion to look at each other confused. “But nope, still no elite tag. The finishing touch has yet to come.” He cracked his knuckles. “Now, what I’m about to do, I promise you, is for your own good.” Aegis took a deep breath and they both got serious again.

“I want both of you to stand up and draw your weapons.” Aegis instructed them and they both did so obediently, holding their spears at their sides. “The only way for you both to reach your true potential is to kill me. You must both kill me. I am strong, so you’ll need to work together to do it.” Aegis grinned at them as he equipped his shield to his left arm and held it in front of himself.

“What?” Farlion replied, confused.

“Forgive me sir, but I don’t quite understand Kalmoorian humor.” Celestian replied while shaking his head.

“It’s no joke. If you don’t kill me, then I’ll have Tinsel and Clara executed.” Aegis said in a serious tone, turning his grin into a glare as he glanced between them. “I am the lord of these lands, and I’ve grown bored of ruling. I think it might be time to clean this place out. If you don’t stop me, I’ll do exactly that.” Aegis added, as he began tapping his shield with his right hand, waiting for them to react, but they didn’t.

“Sir, I don’t believe you would do something like that.” Farlion replied aggressively.

“Why would you save all of my people, only to have them killed?” Celestian asked.

“10 seconds left before I give the order. 10… 9…” Aegis began counting down, and he could see the conflict growing in their expressions. “8… 7… 6… 5…” He continued to count, with each second, the tension grew. He saw them tightening the grip on their weapons. “4… 3… 2…” He saw the frustration in their eyes. The regret they had on their faces as they both jumped atop the table and charged at Aegis in unison, spears held out towards him.

“I cannot let you harm my family!” [Farlion(Elite) - Level 50] yelled in frustration.

“I’m sorry, but I must protect Clara!” [Celestian(Elite) - Level 50] shouted.

“Ok STOP!” Aegis held his hand out to stop them before they’d made it halfway across the top of the large round table. “Just kidding, you passed the test.” Aegis smiled awkwardly. “It actually worked…” He whispered to himself excitedly. “Do you guys feel any different?” Aegis asked them.

“Huh? Not really… that was a part of the test?” Farlion asked, confused as he hesitantly lowered his spear.

“Yup, just a test. You guys both passed, good job.” Aegis smiled.

“So you won’t be harming anyone?” Celestian confirmed.

“No, of course not, that’d be stupid for so many reasons.” Aegis waved this off, and they both let out sighs of relief. “This is amazing, though. I need to hurry and do this with all the gua…” Aegis stopped as suddenly his vision went blue. He was disoriented by the sudden change in environment, and it took a moment for him to realize what had happened. It wasn’t that his vision had gone blue, but rather he was suddenly in a square room surrounded by blue walls, and a blue tiled floor and ceiling.

“What the hell?” Aegis said, looking around confused. “Celestian? Farlion? Is this some sort of illusion spell?” Aegis asked, confused. Just then, he realized his shield was also gone from his left arm, as was his armor gone from his body. He was wearing only his basic common clothing.

A moment later, a floating blue ball of light appeared in front of him, hovering above the ground in the square room. [Game Master Rodrick] stood above the blue ball of light.

“Greetings. My name is Game Master Rodrick.” The blue light spoke in a friendly male voice.

“Hello… uhm… where am I?” Aegis asked, confused.

“I’ve transported you to an administration room, momentarily freezing your game character in place back in the actual game world.” Rodrick explained.

“Oh… why’d you do that?” Aegis asked him nervously, though he had a strong feeling he knew why, based on what he had just done in the game with Celestian and Farlion.

“Have you read through the Averon Inc. Shattered World Terms of Service?” Rodrick asked him.

“Uh… well… I kinda skimmed through it.” Aegis replied anxiously.

“I see. Due to this being your first offense in breaking the Terms of Service, I will let you off with a warning, but you will only get one warning.” Rodrick’s voice went serious. “You have forcefully gamed the AI system to intentionally convert two standard NPCs into Elite NPCs within the span of 10 seconds of each other. While this transition is perfectly acceptable through normal gameplay, utilizing your knowledge and understanding of how the Shattered World Online’s AI systems function to intentionally and repeatedly convert Non-Elite NPCs into Elite NPCs its strictly against the ToS, as repeatedly doing so could result in an overload of the Averon SuperAI and the server systems, therefore resulting in the servers crashing and causing irreversible data loss.” He paused for a moment.

“Oh… I didn’t know.”

“Yes. I’m aware, that is why you are being let off with a warning. Please refrain from manipulating our AI systems in this way in the future. Should an AI naturally be converted to an Elite AI in your presence in the future, it will be flagged and be put under scrutiny for the means at which it occurred. If you are found to be abusing the AI systems in this way again, you will be penalized with an account suspension. Further violations will result in account termination. Do you understand?” Rodrick explained.

“Uh… yes sir. Very clear, sir. My apologies.” Aegis replied timidly.

“Great, thank you for your understanding. I will return you to your game character now. Enjoy your time in the Shattered World.” Rodrick replied, his jovial tone returning. A few moments later, the blue room disappeared, and Aegis was standing back in the town hall. Celestian and Farlion were still there, and still elite, but no longer standing on the table.

“Is there anything else you need from us sir?” Farlion asked him.

“Nope… that was all.” Aegis said with wide eyes, his mind was somewhere else for a moment, but he was glad to see at least that they kept their elite status.

“We’ll get back to our duties then.” Celestian bowed, and the two of them unlocked the door and left the room.

“Ok…” Aegis shook his head to himself as he opened up his interface and scrolled into his settings, and eventually found a copy of the terms of service. “I should probably actually read this thing before I accidentally get myself banned.” Aegis mumbled to himself. Once he’d finished reading it, he learned that he had very clearly broken one of the rules under the AI section.

“Well, glad I wasn’t streaming that.” Aegis shook his head to himself as he read through it and realized that if he had broadcasted how to do it publicly he would’ve been immediately banned, among other things. By the time he’d read the whole thing, it was late afternoon. He stepped back out into the streets of Rene to hear the sound of loud chatter coming from the town square, and the sound of hammering and saws coming from the construction of the wall around them.

“Yo.” Darkshot waved at him as he spotted Aegis and approached.

“Sup.” Aegis replied as he stretched his arms up towards the sky.

“Came to check on you. Farlion and Celestian have been walking around Elite for the last while, but you were still missing.” Darkshot shrugged.

“Yeah, I was just reading something.” Aegis replied.

“Okay. I should give you a little warning. Rumors have started…” Darkshot looked around at the people nearby awkwardly.

“Rumors?” Aegis raised an eyebrow.

“Yeah. You know… you turned off your stream, then disappeared with those two in a room alone for a bit… and the next time they came out, they were elite. Everyone knows the best way to make an NPC elite is… well… you know…” Darkshot hesitated to explain himself.

“Seriously? Who started rumors like that?” Aegis groaned.

“Huh, dunno, musta been someone around here.” Darkshot replied while avoiding Aegis’ eye contact.

“That’s not what I did.” Aegis replied annoyed.

“Oh, really? Sweet. So can you make Darkwing elite too?” Darkshot motioned to his pigeon excitedly.

“Nope.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’ll get banned.”

“Ew, dude, I knew it. That’s nasty.”

“No, man, I don’t mean because… jeez, get your mind out of the gutter. How could you even think that?”

“What? You said it.”

“I didn’t say it.” Aegis sighed.

“Well, you implied it.”

“No, you just assumed.”

“Then tell me how you made them elite, and I’ll do it with Darkwing.”

“No way, I told you, you’ll get banned. It was against the ToS, I had a Game Master even give me a warning.” Aegis explained.

“Jesus, what the hell did you do in there?” Darkshot raised his eyebrows in disbelief. “I never knew you were into that sort of stuff.” He shook his head sarcastically. Aegis just rolled his eyes at him, now that he’d realized Darkshot was just messing with him.

“Come on, let’s finish the wall so we can get out of here.” Aegis motioned him towards the sounds of construction.”

“Fine…” Darkshot dragged his feet along as he followed behind Aegis.

One Week Later…

Level Up!: Architecture has reached Level 88!

Level Up!: Stonecutting has reached Level 79!

Level Up!: Woodcutting has reached Level 61!

Level Up!: Woodworking has reached Level 70!

Level Up!: Crafting Mastery has reached Level 45!

Level Up!: Leadership has reached Level 73!

Level Up!: Taming has reached Level 40!

Level Up!: Refining has reached Level 45!

Level Up!: Blacksmithing has reached Level 47!

Level Up!: Mining has reached Level 46!

“Aint she a beaut.” Tullan said as he proudly walked along the top of the wall surrounding Rene beside Aegis. It stood 10 meters tall, 2 meters wide, with battlements to protect those atop it from ranged attacks. The color of the stone was a consistent dark grey thanks to all of it coming from the same Night Hunter quarry.

The wall wrapped around the edge of the river with a large gate constructed in front of the Bridge of Rene to allow passage through it. In addition, a gate was built at the ends of the western, eastern, and northern roads. The northern road extended further north towards the mountains where it eventually arrived at the Monastery of the Stars, while the western and eastern roads didn’t go much of anywhere beyond the gates, but Aegis imagined that in the future it would be possible that more people arrived, and farms would be built outside the walls as they had been around Kordas.

The wall didn’t have much in the way of details, it was fairly plain but with occasional symbols of Eirene etched into the battlements. Yuki had made plenty of banners using basic cloth to hang off the walls intermittently to give it color. They were dark blue embroidered with a large yellow star of Eirene on them in the center.

Long before the wall had been completed, the Rene guards started making use of it to keep an eye on the activity within the lands from a good vantage point. It was much easier to see everything going on in his land now, from atop the wall. Aegis still had hopes to add towers, and build a keep within the empty plots of land between the western and northern sections, but for now, what he’d built was enough. The Barracks was completed and now equipped with spare weapons and armor for the guards, and a prison using iron bars, thanks to Aegis having Josephine take over the Jia’nar cavern for a few days to farm enough iron to make them.

With the help of all of the high level crafters in Rene, who had only gotten better and better the longer the project went on, combined with Aegis’ high skills and leadership, it turned out better than expected. There was still a dark patch of dirt left behind where the trench had been dug out for the gnoll battle, but it was filled in and Amile was working to regrow the grass to hide that it ever existed.

The hardest part of the wall was making sure that the wheels of the forge and sawmill would still function and pass through the wall, without disrupting their ability to harness the power of the river to power the bellows and sawmill respectfully. But thanks to Ruffily and Tullan’s help, Aegis was able to sort it out without sacrificing the integrity of the wall itself.

In addition to the wall, portal altar and barracks being completed, Aegis and the others had done basic landscaping to push back the cliff face on the other side of the river. It was a shame to get rid of the familiar view that everyone had when arriving in Rene from Orm, but having a large ledge overlooking the wall wasn’t very smart tactically, so they dug it out to have it sit back a few dozen meters and made use of the stone they’d gathered in the process to help with construction.

In the time that Aegis had been building, Lina worked hard to teach Snowflake a variety of maneuvers. He was just as capable as the gryphon of Hrath’mir two days before the wall had been finished being built, and from that point onward Aegis worked with Snowflake to keep improving their synergy, as well as Aegis’ taming skill, so that he had no trouble flying on Snowflake’s back.

Normally, such construction projects would take much longer, especially in the real world - but many of the players and NPCs who joined in were builder and crafter classes and had many skills that helped speed up the process, in addition to Pyri utilizing their magic to help move stone around. Aegis was sure to provide everyone with his Aura of Beauty and as many direwolf and lynx steaks as possible, while he had Darkshot out hunting the wolves to keep their food supply up. Darkshot was glad to be using his new bow rather than moving blocks of stone around for the week.

Rakkan, on the other hand, spent the week in the training grounds working with Celestian and Farlion. Now that they were elite, it was possible to teach them maneuvers beyond what skill assist had them doing, so he started them out on the very same training regime that Travis had given him and Darkshot. It was brought to Aegis’ attention by Yuki that, now that they were elite, it was possible for them to learn a class as well, just as Yuki had Savika take on the tailoring beginner class alongside her. Aegis hadn’t quite decided what class to set Farlion and Celestion onto yet, though.

“So much work, but it paid off.” Aegis smiled back at Tullan as they looked over the lands from atop the wall. “I’m still not even sure if my advanced class will require me to level all of these skills like the intermediate one did.” Aegis shrugged.

“Eh, I’m bettin’ it will.” Tullan shrugged. “I’m grateful fer the experience, either way. Almost got me ready to go fer my own advanced class.” Tullan grinned.

“Yeah… I’m still a ways off mine. I think we’re safe to leave Rene now though. If anything else tries to attack, we can portal back. We’ve got elite guard captains, and a sturdy wall.” Aegis said as he stopped walking and stood to get a nice view of the land, enjoying the light breeze as it blew through his hair and overtop the wall that afternoon.

“Ay, not to mention the Night Hunters can portal here in a jiffy. Anyone would be an idiot to attack you now.” Tullan replied.

“Yeah…” Aegis nodded. “I’d say the final inspection is complete. Let’s join the others and do the official wall quality check.” Aegis rubbed his hands together. He and Tullan eagerly traversed the wall to the southernmost gate, just in front of the Bridge of Rene. Waiting there for them to return were all of the council members of Rene as well as many others that had helped construct the wall. As Tullan descended a staircase on the inside of the wall left of the gate, Aegis moved to stand on the wall above the open gate - the two thick wooden double doors were held wide open to allow anyone who pleased to come and go.

“Thank you guys all for helping out in building these last days. It’s because of you guys that we were able to complete everything so quickly.” Aegis called out to everyone below as they quieted down and looked up at him. “Now, it’s time for me to check the wall and officially add it as one of Rene’s structures, and see just how well we built it.” Aegis said, and he could feel the anticipation from everyone as he began to fidget around in his interface.

“If it’s less than 60% quality, we oughta tear it down and start over.” Tullan called out sarcastically.

“Hah, no way! Woof!” Ruffily replied as a few people laughed. A big grin grew across Aegis’ face once he saw the building in his list, and quickly renamed it to fit its purpose.

Walls of Rene[Rename][Register][Abandon]

Quality:83%

Durability: 5,000,000/5,000,000

Option 1: Increases Eirene's favor of the land owner of any land this structure is registered to by 10,000.

Option 2: NPCs and Players that are employed by Rene, or are residents of Rene receive a 10% armor bonus when standing within these walls.

Details: A sturdy wall built around the Land of Rene to repel attacks and protect the residence within. The wall is adorned by the stars of Eirene. Constructed by Aegis.

The moment Aegis registered the building, he gained a massive amount of rank points towards Town, and a buff appeared in his interface without a duration, indicating he was within Rene and had his equipped armor value increased by 10%. It wasn’t just him, everyone who had helped build it got the buff and Aegis looked down to see them all checking it.

“Wow! 10% is a lot! Woof!” Ruffily called out excited.

“Dang, it’s as much as Kordas’ walls. What’s the quality?” Chax asked eagerly.

“83%. Another epic quality building for Rene.” Aegis replied with a big smirk, which was met with loud cheers and applause as everyone who had worked on it began to excitedly shout and hop around, giving each other high fives. “I knew it’d be high, with the best tailor in the game and the best smith in Kalmoore helping. And of course, all you hard workers.” Aegis said as he motioned to everyone respectfully.

“He’s talking about me.” Darkshot smirked, getting a few people to laugh.

“But, 83% is incredible. You guys are awesome.” Aegis added, and this was met by more excited cheers. Aegis spotted Pyri looking up at him with a proud mom-smile, and Lina excitedly cheering along with the others, atop a screeching Snowflake.

“So, what’s next? As long as yer payin’ for it, I’m down to keep buildin’.” Tullan joked, and a few others laughed again.

“Well.” Aegis smiled as he looked around the land. “Savika is a Princess… and I’m apparently a Lord. I think we oughta have a Keep.” Aegis said, but quickly continued before anyone could start getting excited. “But, we’re already in debt. And I can’t hang around here forever. We need to get stronger if we want to be able to keep fighting off threats, so that’ll have to wait until we return from our next adventure.” Aegis declared, and heard a few insincere awws of disappointment.

“What’s the next adventure going to be?” Princess Savika asked excitedly, getting everyone to quiet down and listen for Aegis’ answer. Aegis panned over the crowd, stopping on Rakkan, Darkshot, Pyri, and then Lina.

“I think it’s time we pay a certain raid boss a visit.” Aegis replied.