POV Vesuvius:
The dragon watched as the three players before him started to change. Their cells were visibly dying and turning to dust, and then new cells sprouted out, regrowing at an astonishing rate. Causing their skin to turn paler. They stood without moving, but if they were ordinary natives without pain suppression, they would probably have already fainted from the immense pain. Then their eyes turned into dust, and new ones with slightly glowing reptilian irises regrown cell by cell in their place. Finally, the skin on both sides of their heads tore, blood leaking out as pairs of black horns with cracks radiating in dim orange light started to grow out. They grew longer and longer until they reached a length of a human hand.
Vesuvius quietly watched that whole metamorphosis quietly with mixed feelings. On the one hand, he was glad that he managed to save the situation. On the other hand, he felt slight anger towards the players using his situation for their own gain.
However, in the end, he mainly felt positive about that, ‘Well, at least I gained some minions that can enter cities. I am a dragon. It isn’t like I can just walk into the city to fetch something. Also, I gained some new actors that I can use to mislead other players from the right track.’
This whole event, however, brought new thoughts into his mind. When he was a player, he never realized how dangerous players’ existence was, but now that he became basically an NPC, he learned how destructive and chaotic was nature of players, ‘They don’t care about any damage… These three just joined dragons and betrayed humanity without much thinking. They often ignore the consequences of their actions without any fear as they cant die. They can go and do what they want, and natives of this world are the ones suffering!’
Vesuvius knew that players grew incredibly quickly; however, they were still controllable as it was now, but in the future, as their level increased, they would turn into a menace.
‘I need to grow stronger and build organizations to protect myself, and this world from that incoming doom.’
He couldn’t think for much longer as he got a system announcement.
Ding!
//
Congratulations, you are now faction leader of the faction: Dragons
Current faction level: 1
Current effects of the faction:
You can set up rules for members to follow.
You can set up a custom faction system!
You will gain 5% of XP earned by members.
//
He knew that guilds belonged to players and that players could also join a faction belonging to NPCs. However, as no player ever became a leader of a faction, he had no idea how powerful were bonuses of factions to their leader.
‘This… this is maybe what I need to grow faster! It also explains why NPCs that had the support of players grew faster than others… They probably couldn’t see the interface, but their strength probably still grew from that XP.’
Of course, Vesuvius couldn’t just go and recruit a massive army of players, as that, with him being a dragon, would be like declaring open war that he has no chance to win.
‘However, I can still go for quality; a small organization of dragonkins moving in shadows could be a powerful tool. With their increased stats and bonuses as dragonkins, they should be able to earn much more XP than players with basic races. Making even a small group of them a massive source of income.’
Dragonkins had a weakened version of the scaling abilities of true dragons, giving them an immense edge as such abilities were mostly unheard of, except for titles giving some small scaling. And if two players of level one hundredth with the same skill fought against each other, the one with scaling abilities would absolutely decimate their opponent with their much higher stats.
“Ehmm? You draconic highness? Are you here?” Lili’s voice brought Vesuvius out of his thoughts.
“My minions, I have work for you. I will give you drake bones, and you will spread a story of you defeating the drake and me giving you a reward in the form of wyrm blood.”
Lili looked at the dragon intently, trying to discern how he looked under the smoke, “That is smart. It will lead people off your trail and explain our changes. At the same time, dragonkin and wyrmkin look almost the same on the outside.”
‘She is smart.’ Vesuvius made a mental thought to be careful about that girl.
The dragon flapped his massive wings, creating a sandstorm of ash, causing nearby players to cough. He flew above the trees and turned his long neck at the trio of players under him.
“I will deliver the bones tomorrow at the base of the mountains. We will meet there!”
“Wait!”, the spearmen waved his hands, “There is a group of people that wants to find and raid your lair.”
“Well, good job. I will reward you in the future!”
Vesuvius speeded up, and the distance between them quickly grew as the dragon kept flapping his wings, flying back towards his mountain.
As he flew, he had a lot of time to think, ‘If I want to build a small organization of players, I need to make it attractive. Making them dragonkin is just a short-term solution for that. I will need to increase the faction cohesion with something that players would consider cool.’
He flew high about the forest, but he could still hear a lot of players in the woods under him. He suppressed slight irritation on the intruders and flapped his wings stronger, speeding up even further, the mountain on the horizon quickly growing.
As he flew, he kept thinking about the problem of cohesion until he found a good and relatively easy-to-implement solution, ‘If it is supposed to be a secret organization, I can build it upon such premise. Secret meetings with masks, robes and secret passcodes sound like something that players would like. Also, I should keep their number small to give it a feeling of exclusivity. A small number will be also easier to control… As they will be helping me build it from the ground up, they should probably feel some kind of pride for their work, which would slowly become a feeling of belonging.’
“Hey, you flying sausage! Come down here and fight me!”
‘What the hell?’ Vesuvius looked down, his thoughts vanishing. There was a clearing in the middle of the forest with three players without shirts. All of them had no hair and held maces in their hands.
“Hey, look at that flying sausage!” one of them pointed at the dragon.
Vesuvius opened his mouth in surprise, not knowing what was happening. Their action made absolutely no sense.
“Hey bro, look, that sausage is looking at us!”