Theo was within 20 Advancement Points of getting the Sormer encampment to rank 2. As far as he could tell, pretty much every other player had beelined for the next levelling area, but he was determined to get expeditions going. There were a particular kind of contract quests that had to do with clearing out infestations that perfectly suited his talents, so that is what he was focused on.

  The contracts needed to be 'activated' in certain areas, which would cause a horde of monsters to appear. Theo had found one by accident while he was grinding Advancement. When he popped it, about 16 Tideskates, shadowy ghost fish with huge underbites, flooded into the small passageway he was inspecting carefully.

  Theo threw out his barricade and stepped back, quickly cycling through the rotation of summons he was becoming so adept at. The barricade was fading fast, but the monsters were frail. They had much less health than the random shadow monsters Theo occasionally ran into deep below the settlement. As a result, the fire area of effect emanating off his barricade turret was making short work of the fish. He switched gears after summoning an arrow turret and plopped down a second fire turret next to the first.

  Between the steady hail of arrows and two rings of hellfire, the fish were reduced to corpses in no time. Theo was hooked. He pumped his fist, "Tower defense!"

  He asked his AI to select three of the extermination contracts that targeted the same area. They could be initiated from about 50 yards away from their source, and the monsters would immediately target and swarm towards the player. Theo hurried off the to the highlighted region on his map, which was a cluster of homes on the edge of the deep abyss. Yes! Exactly what I wanted!

  There was only one path between the highlighted area and the spot he started to build his encampment. He placed two overlapping barricades, with one as a backup, and then sat and waited to restore enough mana to drop three arrow turrets on a series of stone lips overlooking the winding pathway. He started the contracts all at once, then threw out a healing node as he waited for the monsters to arrive.

  A line of about 40 monsters started to form in the dark depths down the trail. These were a mixture of translucent fish, some horrible wooly spiders, and shambling undead Sormer. As luck would have it, they all moved at slightly different speeds, and the fish were already starting to clash against his first barricade as the others lagged behind. With a roar, Theo jumped down into the fray and slashed clean through an ethereal tail. The turrets clicked and whirred as their attacks were quickened by a second, then they all released a glowing sphere of mana as he swung again.

  He planned on letting the first barricade be destroyed, and was saving his mana to replace it after the second in line took over. That should split the enemy waves and give his arrow turrets plenty of time to reduce their ranks. The flame turrets were unfortunately doomed to run out of their predetermined duration time anyways, so he would likely be using all of his recouped mana to maintain their contribution. As a half dozen fish splashed to the floor and faded into shadowy sludge, the spiders made their advance.

  Theo hadn't fought these creatures before, and they had some kind of ranged attack that they shot from their webbing spinnerets. Their range kept them from walking into the flame attacks, and the material they shot seemed to be jamming the barricades' attacks. Because they were outside of the flame circle, they were quickly prompted switch to the attackers that were drawing their attention: the arrow towers. Although they could fire from afar, the arrows' range outclassed them by at least 4 yards, and so the spiders rushed forwards to whip their silky missiles at the turrets peppering them. By sheer luck, that meant they completely removed their only advantage by charging right into the flames they had ignored just seconds ago. As soon as their spiderwebs faded away, a torrent of flames crashed into their backs and they whipped right around.

  Theo shook his head in disbelief. The power of combining his summon skills was just plain unfair. Well, not completely unfair. Under the combined fire of the spiders and fish monsters, barricade No. 1 was experiencing a meteoric drop towards zero health. Theo took a pass through the horde, hacking away at enemies already near death, and collected one last surge of mana before the barricade crumpled. He let the fish swim forward to harass the second line of defense, then plopped a fresh barricade down on top of the scrap left behind.

  A few snags and hiccups later, Theo was nursing a minor wound to his shin as he plopped down in front of the job board. This should do it. He turned in his three quests and watched the map as the encampment's Advancement meter rolled over to 103/100.

  The halls beyond the camp boomed with a sudden thunderclap, and Theo jolted up onto his feet with his axe drawn. A second later, a warm light grew and spilled out of the mountain fortress. The dwarves in the camp surged forward to the entryway with cries of surprise and delight. One shouted from inside the ancient halls, "Tide be damned, the Heart magics are coming back!"

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  Theo joined them in surveying the hall. Glowing stones that lined the walls had been restored to function, and the hallway looked cleaner and more majestic than it had moments ago. The camp boss, Adalgeisa, clapped a few times to get her crew's attention before bellowing out orders to start moving their gear and tents into the hall.

  In all the excitement, Theo almost missed a message that had come in on his interface:

  Oh, did everyone see that? He hesitated. Having these cool abilities seemed fine for pursuing his exploration goals, but he didn't want to rob anyone of their achievements by essentially cheating. He definitely didn't want to get banned, either. He planned on spending a lot of time in this game. Ugh, what should I do...

  The player immediately responded:

  Theo grimaced. This person seemed really friendly. He was excited to make friends, of course, but he couldn't help but feel like he should be laying low. Oh, what the heck, how would they even know I was doing something wrong?

  Er... yes?

  Theo's eyes went wide and he took an uncertain step backwards. Calm down! But... I really want to start some expeditions, and the more help the better, right? Yes.

  "Hey! I'm only a minute or two away," a woman's brassy mezzo spoke from seemingly inside of Theo's mind.

  He scrambled through his communication menu and switched over to a 'Party' option before he could reply, "Hi. No problem. I'm checking out the new stuff they're setting up. Uh, I'm Theo by the way."

  "Hi Theo! I'm Anya. Enjoying the game?" The player responded with enthusiasm.

  Theo laughed nervously as he strolled around the new stalls being assembled in the grand hall, "Yeah, it's amazing. What about you?"

  "I'm having a blast! Oh, I think I see you!"

  A Sormer woman in heavy armor ran awkwardly through the towering entrance to the ruin, a dull clang ringing out with each step she took. She came to a dead stop less than a foot away from Theo, "There you-"

  She stopped speaking abruptly, then raised her hand in front of her face and tapped away at something unseen. Her helmet faded away and she started up again, speaking plainly, "That was weird. Hi."

  She was a few inches taller than Theo's character, and she had thick blond hair that was bound up in four low braids. Theo was both conflicted and glad to see that she had chosen to forgo the traditional dwarven beard. Not really lore appropriate, but I'm sure it seems weird to most players... Despite the lack of a beard, she looked like a regal lion. Theo had to tear his eyes away from her, "H- hey! I thought I was the only player left in this area!"

  "Right? It seems like most of the other people that started here were from a raiding group or something? I saw them leveling together while I was out logging. They were pretty impressive!"

  Theo nodded, "That would explain a lot. I was all alone after I finished the tutorial," then he laughed involuntarily again. It's kinda fun to just chat about the game.

  She chuckled, and started to speak again, "I didn't think tha-" when a huge crash and a gust of wind tore through the encampment, sending tarps and ropes flying.

  Theo whipped around to stare at the hall's doors, but after a split second of taking in the chaos, he realized that the gust had come from deeper inside the ruins. He turned back to Anya, and her brown eyes were as wide as saucers. He followed her gaze to a section of wall near the end of the long hall that had crumbled into a gaping opening. Shadows of all shapes and sizes were clambering through it, but Theo's eyes fixated on a tall humanoid figure standing ominously in the center of the chaos.

  Anya clapped Theo on the back, "Look at that! Perfect timing! I'm playing a Runewarden by the way. Tanky, self-sufficient. I'm hoping you do a lot of damage?"

  Theo winced, I can do it all... but Anya probably shouldn't know that. I'll stick to my scouting build for now, "Yes, I'm a Heartbellows. I can summon damage dealing towers, but they have to stay in one place."

  Anya clacked her gauntlet covered fists together, "Awesome! I'll gather them up and you grind em' up!"

  Theo was still thinking over his skills when Anya popped her helmet back into existence, unslung a massive hammer, and charged towards the army of shadows. Theo scrambled to chase after. The entire hall had drawn weapons and were bracing at the edge of the disordered camp. Theo secretly dropped a healing node near the biggest cluster of dwarves as he passed by, then stopped a few feet behind Anya. She grinned at him, "Probably shouldn't go too deep, huh?"

  A group of three pitch black... rats, maybe galloped towards them. Anya raised her hammer high, and a bright orange rune lit up on the end of the hammer's head. She waiting until the rat creatures were a few feet away and then slammed it into the ground. A shockwave radiated out from the point of impact and tossed the rats into the air. When they landed, they turned towards her with creepy echoing hisses. Oh! A taunt!

  Theo nearly forgot that he was fighting too. He stepped back a few paces and placed a pair of arrow turrets near edge of the battlefield. They seemed to have an intrinsic understanding of Anya's targets, and opened fire on one of the rats. It was a little awkward fighting side-by-side. Theo was used to games letting you walk through other people on your team, so he accidentally bumped into Anya as he ran forward to attack one of the enemies. She didn't seem to mind, and laughed as she stumbled forward, "On your left, Theo."

  As the battle raged, Theo was having trouble telling what skills he should use. The mana refund would be really helpful for this event, but it was a conspicuous skill since it created glowing orbs of magic. However, he decided that there was no way Anya could know what was and wasn't a normal noise for his turrets to make when Field Training was activated. That should be safe to use freely. I just need to be careful with my healing node. He mentally urged it to stay behind the wall of brawling dwarves.

  Theo went all in on regaining mana, and had a third arrow turret up 30 seconds into the battle. Anya was able to distract and disable groups of 6 monsters without much difficulty, and she had some kind of small self-heal, so Theo was able to focus on damage. All around them, clusters of shadowy figures crashed into the makeshift defense line. The Sormer were clearly battle ready, but Theo still kept an eye on anyone who was struggling so he could burst down their attackers.

  The event was going well, but the progress on the event's 'Suppress invading force' bar wasn't moving. At the 5 minute mark, the camp chief shouted out a warning, "They're not slowing down!"

  Anya chatted casually in their party chat, "I wonder why we're not making progress...? Do you think that guy gawking from the breach site is the real target?"

  Theo stopped hacking away at a long, eel-like shadow and looked up. The tall figure was still standing there, arms crossed. Theo had picked up an analysis skill from exploring the map, Quantify, and he used it on the mysterious form.

  Theo stumbled over his words, "Uh, yeah, definitely important... A summoner."

  Anya swatted an enemy to one side then turned back to the dwarves, holding her warhammer high and shouting with booming clarity, "We're going after the leader! Who will help us clear a path?"