Chapter 109: No Main Quest
By the end of the first week, the fields around the starter village contained almost no wild monsters.
Too many adventurers had remained in one region.
They could travel farther, join organized hunts, accept work inside instances, or compete over what remained. Most chose the last option until competition stopped being profitable.
Local hunters responded before Max did. They marked breeding grounds, closed two paths used by farm animals, and refused to guide parties that attacked every creature they encountered. A group could ignore those restrictions outside protected land, but doing so damaged their reputation with the people who knew where worthwhile hunting grounds existed.
Several adventurers learned that killing one additional monster was a poor trade for losing every local guide willing to work with them.
The creatures returned at different rates.
Burrowing rodents appeared first. Their monster spawner produced a limited number each day and spread them through several fields. Five parties could hunt them successfully. Twenty parties spent more time arguing over tracks than fighting.
Horned scavengers took longer to return. Briar cats reproduced slowly enough that killing one left its territory empty for days. Other creatures moved naturally between territories instead of appearing wherever an adventurer wanted them.
Complaints reached the Sanctuary taverns.
"There is nothing left near the village."
"We walked four hours and found one monster."
"Another party took the entire burrow before we arrived."
The entrance warning promised enemies of varied strength, not an unlimited number of creature standing behind every tree just waiting to be killed for experience.
Even so, Max monitored the population through the dungeon menu.
Quin stood beside him in the office while colored regions displayed hunting pressure near the starter village.
"You could increase the spawners." Quin said.
"I could." Max nodded without looking up form his work
"But you are not going to."
"Nope. The area is crowded because everyone is staying within a few miles of the entrance. If I refill every field each night, they will never have a reason to move."
Anna checked the travel records. "They are beginning to move without it. Two hundred visitors left with caravans this morning. Another sixty hired guides to reach nearby villages."
Those villages had responded as the starter village did. One converted an empty grain barn into shared lodging. Another refused overnight visitors after its only well began running low. A third charged parties to use fenced land beside the road but offered free space farther from the houses.
Max had not issued a single rule requiring the settlements to make the same choice.
"Good." He said. "Let one village welcome them and another send them away. They are their own places, not copies."
Quin studied a red patch on the population map. "Some people will call that unfair."
"They can travel to the villages that agrees with them."
The country contained hundreds upon thousands of monster territories. Some were safe enough for inexperienced adventurers. Others held creatures capable of destroying the parties currently arguing over rodents. Each spawner maintained a population range instead of instantly replacing every kill.
Max had built a country, not a hallway that refilled behind each group.
"Redbrook has already solved part of it," Anna said as she double checked on her clipboard. "They posted work for visiting adventurers."
The market town’s public boards filled with outsiders searching for a central objective. Many expected a notice naming the next boss, a royal emergency, or a chain of tasks that eventually led toward the capital.
Instead, they found ordinary work.
The Merchants’ Association needed caravan guards and clerks who could use the Sanctuary’s measurements. The Arcane Society purchased samples from mana-rich streams. A martial company offered formation training to adventurers who had never fought beside more than four companions. The town council hired laborers to reinforce the riverbank before the autumn rains.
A healer could work at a clinic. A carpenter could repair wagons. An appraiser could inspect imported equipment. A tracker could guide hunters toward land that had not been emptied the previous morning.
The faction system connected each job to the organization offering it.
[Faction reputation reflects your relationship with an established Corathian organization.]
[Player-created organizations remain classified as guilds.]
A Sanctuary guild could build relationships with several factions without becoming part of any of them. Its warriors might accept contracts from a martial company, its mages study with the Arcane Society, and its merchants register with the Merchants’ Association. Reputation belonged to the people who earned it rather than spreading automatically to everyone wearing the same guild emblem.
That disappointed one guild leader who expected thirty members to benefit after he completed a single delivery.
The association clerk showed him the rule requiring each representative to establish a record.
"Your guild’s reputation tells us whether you keep agreements with your own people," she explained. "Our reputation tells you whether we keep agreements with ours. Neither replaces doing business together."
Most criminal factions did not advertise on public boards.
One adventurer asked a Redbrook guard where he could join the local thieves.
"Try the prison." the guard suggested. "Many thieves gather there."
The adventurer decided to search less openly when the guard suggested he could spend a few days in a cell. Maybe he could meet them that way.
Five members of an established Sanctuary guild accepted a notice from the Royal Road Patrol. Travelers had reported bells ringing inside an abandoned watchtower west of Redbrook even though the tower no longer contained a bell. Pale soldiers had begun appearing on the road after dark.
The patrol had already investigated.
Its report stated that an old death scar inside the tower released the same dead soldiers every few days. Destroying them emptied the site for a time, but the scar eventually rebuilt their forms. The entrance could not be sealed without forcing the magic into the surrounding farms. Completely cleansing the undead energy in the tower would affect those nearby. It was much easier to periodically clear out the undead rather than risk harming the future harvests.
The Arcane Society converted the tower into a controlled clearing site generations ago.
To Corathen’s residents, it was a dangerous location requiring regular maintenance.
To the dungeon system, it was a repeatable instance.
The five adventurers had trained in the Sanctuary and carried equipment suited to holding narrow stairs. They traveled west beneath the guidance of a member of the Royal Road Patrol.
The watchtower stood on a rocky hill surrounded by an old iron fence. Its upper floor had collapsed, but pale light moved behind the ground-level arrow openings. A stone plaque beside the gate listed the patrol members who died containing the site before the instance barrier was installed.
The guide stopped outside the fence.
"The inside separates from the tower after you cross the lower doorway." She explained. "If another party enters after you, they will face their own copy. What you destroy inside will return later. What you damage out here will not."
That distinction appeared in the system notice.
[Self-contained instance identified.]
[The Hollow Watch]
[Recommended party size: 5]
[Recommended party level: 25]
[Objective: Defeat the dead soldiers and drain the death scar.]
[Instance damage and inhabitants will reset.]
[The surrounding region remains persistent.]
The party checked its supplies before entering.
The guardian went first. The door closed behind the healer, and pale light filled cracks around its frame. The patrol guide remained outside instead of disappearing with them.
Max received the activation notice while examining the hunting map.
[First Level Five sub-instance entered.]
He opened its record.
Quin read over his shoulder. "Are you going to watch?"
"Not every attack. I want to know whether they understand the difference between the tower and the world around it."
Max kept the viewing window open.
The Hollow Watch did not require a complicated mystery. The party entered at the lowest stair and found the tower rebuilt to its original height. Pale soldiers occupied every landing, commanded by officers who strengthened the ranks beneath them.
The adventurers advanced without turning the climb into a race. The guardian held the narrow stairs. The healer conserved mana when bandages were enough. The other three destroyed officers before spending time on soldiers that would weaken after their commanders fell.
Their first serious mistake occurred on the fourth floor. They chased a retreating officer into an open room and allowed spirits to approach from two staircases. The guardian could block one route, not both.
The party gave up the room and moved down one floor. They lost several minutes and most of the healer’s remaining mana, but no one died.
At the top of the tower, they found the death scar suspended beneath the place where the bell once hung. The patrol provided three iron rods carved with draining marks. Installing them required the party to protect one member while the dead commander tried to break the unfinished pattern.
Max followed the actions of the group as they fought their way up the tower. He watched the formation move, fail, and reform around the person carrying the final rod.
When it entered the stone, the pale soldiers lost their shape.
[The Hollow Watch completed.]
[Death scar drained.]
[Faction reputation increased: Royal Road Patrol.]
[The instance will remain dormant while the death scar reforms.]
[Your party will be able to complete this instance again in 30 days]
The party returned through the same doorway shortly after sunset. Outside, the watchtower had not rebuilt its missing floors. A section of fence one member bent while entering remained bent, and the patrol guide made him straighten it before they left.
Quin studied the completion record. "So the instance is now closed?"
"No," Max said. "Others can attempt Hollow Watch but a party that finishes it will need to wait a certain amount of time before they can re-enter."
"Are all the instances in Corathen like that?" Quin asked. He had tested a few of them before the adventures had even unlocked level 5 but that was before the final mechanisms were in place.
"No. Some will let you complete it again immediately. It all depends on the environment and story that goes with the instance."
Level Five had opened with enough content to occupy its first visitors for years. Max still intended to add to it faster than they could consume everything important.
The unexplained countdown reached twenty-three days. It had not provided another other clues yet.