King of the Mountain

Chapter 35: Robbing the World (Again)

For my personal trip I will be visiting several sites that I had previously, and I will finish cleaning them out. However, with no people and my ability to now teleport using scrolls I should be able to hit several different places world-wide in a very short amount of time. I can also travel to areas that I thought would be too crowded or difficult for my last trip. I will loot all the treasuries and vaults I can in 5 days. After that I will come back to my castle and start the purchase of everything.

I should be back in my castle for the return of my friends and family. I can add things to my chosen cities over the next couple of days as the scavenge teams continue working while I try and set up my council and governing royalty. I have instructed my new head steward Jacob to inform me if there are any problems. My leadership team for my new mercenary guard force should be present along with the palace guards soon. Jacob will message me with a communication crystal as soon as they arrive so I can make it back and give them instructions.

The next 12 hours are a blur of teleport, break into a vault, and loot. I was able to clear out the rest of Fort Knox, the Federal Reserve, both mints, the London gold and silver vaults, Great Britain’s Crown jewels, the Antwerp Diamond exchange, and I was in the middle of the Netherlands Bank vault when I got the message from Jacob to come back and deal with the new guards. I quickly teleported back into my throne room and saw that it was filled up with a variety of people.

I raised my voice, “Welcome to Appalachia Kingdom. I am King Mark Anderson. Would the Leadership team and the Leaders of the Royal Guards stay behind. Everyone else please follow Head Steward Jacob to the courtyard and we will organize and have you in your bunks and with assignments as quickly as possible.”

I watched carefully as my new royal guard was sorted out by what I can only assume are sergeants or their equivalent ranks. My father who was in the military always told me that those were the people to watch to learn how to get things done. In a much shorter time than I expected the throne room was cleared and I was left with 7 individuals facing me. Rather than guess I just asked them to introduce themselves and the role that they will play in the new kingdom.

“I am Randolph my lord and I will be the overall military leader of your combined forces. With me are my four trusted associates William, Horace, Sleejak, and Annabelle who will liaison and be nominally in charge of each region along with the commanders of the forces you have hired for your kingdom. We will decide who will match with each group as we get to know the area and units you have hired.”

“My King, I am Leticia and I am the commander of the WarBand that will become your royal guard. Next to me is my husband and second in command Kneefer.”

“Excellent, I know I will have the opportunity to get to know you each individually in the future and hope our time working together is fruitful. Now before we begin anything else I need to ask a question. I am new to the Great Game. While I am thinking of it I need to know if there is a way to block teleportation in a specific area for everyone or something that will allow only specified people into the area?”

Randolph chuckled and said, “I wondered why everyone was coming into the throne room of the kingdom. Yes, my lord there are several ways to limit or ban teleportation and other methods of travel within a given area. We can hire a teleportation magus to engrave restrictions or a more expensive but stronger method is to buy Limitation Stones from the Great Game store and have them installed and then recharged on a regular basis.”

“Other than instantaneous completion what is the benefit of using the Great Game Limitation Stones?”

“The stones cannot be overpowered by any being weaker than the planetary leader.”

“Alright, that just makes me even more confused, who or what is the planetary leader?”

Randolph look surprised.

“I believe that you are the planetary leader my lord. The planetary leader is highest leveled person on a Great Game planet or their designee. They are confirmed or chosen every three years to represent their planet in the Great Game competition.”

I was getting more and more nervous the more I heard from Randolph.

“I have never even heard of the Great Game competition. Wouldn’t I have been notified if I was this planetary leader?”

Randolph paused and then a look of inspiration came across his face.

“I believe I understand my lord that you were a survivor of the Beta Trials correct?”

“That is correct, how did you know?”

“While extremely rare it is not unheard of for a being to pass the Great Game Beta Trial. They are usually the highest leveled being on a planet and have an advantage that is difficult for others to catch up to. Since you are here and not going through the tutorial I just naturally assumed you were one of these people.”

“Well you assumed correctly, how does this change what you said about the planetary leader?”

“It does not change anything sire, you will still be the planetary leader barring a miracle from someone during the tutorial. The Great Game has yet to notify you because the official integration of a planet is at the end of the tutorial. In fact, this explains a lot. The tutorial covers many aspects of Great Game life you seem to be struggling with.”

The conversation continued on from there and covered a large amount details that “everyone” in the Great Game just seems to know. I was personally left without this information due to my unusual circumstance of finishing the beta trial and not attending the tutorial. This planetary leader thing I am just going to put off until I have to deal with it. I have too much on my plate right now to even consider it. I am trying the best I can, but the horrible part is I know I am making mistakes. Resource allocation, leadership, time management, all of these areas need improvement. However, I can only catch so many things on my own.

I want to get some reliable people in some key areas so I can shift a lot of the burden of “ruling” onto them and try and focus on just one or two things myself. Trying to accomplish everything on my own is causing errors and mistakes in planning and execution. None of the mistakes are purposeful, but any mistake when dealing with a situation this important can lead to drastic and terrible consequences.

I finally got my new military leadership squared away and bunked down for the night with several new rules and assignments they needed to do.

Never assume that I know something, please bring it up and if I already know I can move us along.

Make a list of everything you have seen, heard of, or know of that would make this kingdom better, safer, and a place you would want to live with your family or clan.

Division of labor. The leadership of the 4 WarForces would be arriving tomorrow and would need assignments. The leadership team will study the maps and pictures that I have and use teleport scrolls I provide to survey the kingdoms area the best they can in the limited amount of time we have to place each division in the area they could do the most good.

Communication, any time sensitive information needs to be brought to my attention. I will purchase the “Great Game Cities” and amenities I can afford as each War Force is taken to their area. This will mean my scavenger teams will have a slightly longer time to accumulate wealth for the kingdom’s treasury.

I let my military leadership know that I was looking for more advisors to help out. Any recommendations would be welcome. Let’s face it, they have met more people than me throughout their careers and have seen good and bad kingdoms and rulers. I will still approve major changes or new advisor roles, but they are experienced and hired for a reason.

I have to get back to resource gathering and quickly. I will teleport in to meet each new War force leader and find out where they are going and hear any quick suggestions on placement of new city walls, barracks, granaries and such for defensive purposes. I will then purchase the main base/city from the Great Game and have the local WarForces spread out and acquire resources like my scavenging teams.

The final day before the return of the tutorial people will be a large meeting to decide the final allocation of cities and outposts and what amenities the treasury will allow. I realize that many of the people coming back from the tutorial are not going to want to be part of my kingdom or will refuse to recognize my right to rule. I am still trying to figure out what to do with them. I want to protect as many people as possible, but I cannot and will not have insurrection. That would jeopardize the safety and security of too many.

Listen to me. I am sounding more and more like some sort of despotic ruler who will not allow any dissension. I need to be careful and not abuse my privilege of early entry and high level, I don’t want to deal with the consequences and fall out. In fact, if I can just make it through the transition period I hope to rid myself completely of this whole thing. Let other people figure out the rules and regulations. I don’t want the responsibility. Once safety has been guaranteed as much as possible I can start relaxing some rules and passing on some authority to others so I have less stress and worries. This whole situation keeps getting more complicated the more I learn.

Three days have passed since my leadership team has arrived and it is now almost time to teleport back for the meeting. I have done extremely well on my resource gathering trip and my leadership team and hired royal army have done even better. I should have tried to hire professionals from the beginning. This collection of military people from across the Great Game have taken to the challenge of setting up my new kingdom amazingly well. Each evening I get a status report and a few brief questions. That’s it, they take care of the rest. I even teleported into a couple of areas after two days for a surprise and covert look and was amazed at the efficiency and dedication these groups showed.

I have exceeded my target goals thanks to the great jobs of the scavenging teams and the new Appalachia Army. I should be able to afford the sewer and teleportation upgrades to the survival “cities” I am creating through the Great Game. I have also decided that any person who does not wish to stay inside my kingdom will be given 1 month to exit. They can leave on foot or with a free trip through the teleport array. To be able to accommodate them I will set up a teleport array in Washington D.C. even though I am not claiming the area. It is going to cost me extra money, but should pay for itself in peace of mind and hopefully future trade. I realize that there is going to be resistance and hard feelings from many areas. However, I cannot picture a single scenario where the existing government will be viable after returning.

Over 80% of the current U.S. leadership is of an age that passing the Great Game trials is going to be problematic at the least. The succession for the President will probably be almost impossible to secure. First someone would have to find and locate everyone in the succession without the use of the technology that we have come to rely on. Next they would have to be able to convince others that this person was the new president and that they should follow orders. Finally, they would have to find some way to get this news out to everyone while trying to protect people and feed them without the weapons and transportation they are used too. Not going to happen.