Strawberry's Descent

Arista wasn't the only one who noticed the debris.

Word of the strange, mechanical wreckage washing up along the Demi-Human coastline spread quickly among players who'd rolled that race, drawn by the same rumors that had reached every other kingdom since the storm announcement, new region, new race, a race against the rest of the server to be first. Several enterprising guilds, reasoning correctly that the coastline offered the most direct route to open water, began the obvious next step: building boats.

They learned, considerably faster than they expected, exactly why that plan was a mistake.

[Thread: got permanently banned from a Demi-Human settlement for CUTTING DOWN A TREE]4.7k replies

"we needed lumber for a hull, this is INSANE, it's just trees??"

"bro have you not been paying attention to literally anything about this faction the entire past two years"

"'we take what the land freely gives, and give back in kind': this has been public lore since the metro project, how did nobody read it"

"my guild's entire boat-building operation got shut down in like six hours. every NPC in a fifty mile radius refuses to trade with us now"

The consequences, once triggered, proved immediate and thorough. Demi-Human settlements, normally warm, if reserved, toward respectful visitors, closed ranks entirely against any player caught felling timber without invitation. Trade access revoked. Quest lines quietly locked. In at least one widely-screenshotted incident, an entire guild found themselves escorted, firmly but without violence, to the nearest border and asked, politely but unmistakably, not to return.

[Thread: PSA — do NOT try to source materials from Demi-Human territory without permission]pinned by community moderators, 8.2k replies

"learned this the hard way. they don't fight you, they just... stop trading with you. entirely. permanently, near as anyone's tested"

"someone in my guild tried apologizing after the fact and got told, quote, 'the tree does not grow back because you are sorry'"

"okay that's actually a really good line ngl"

"the NPCs here are built DIFFERENT compared to every other kingdom"

Bram, scrolling the threads with Arista over breakfast, snorted. "...People genuinely thought they could just wander in and start chopping."

"To be fair, most games would let you." Arista kept reading, half amused, half genuinely proud of how firmly the Demi-Human community had held its own values against an entire server's worth of impatient boat-builders. "This is the exact reason it took me three weeks of actual conversation just to get ventilation shafts approved. Sorrel and her people don't compromise on this stuff for convenience. Not for me, not for anyone."

"Guess that means your zeppelin's still the fastest legitimate route in."

"It was never really a competition on that front," Arista said, grinning. "Nobody's cutting down a forest to build wings. I didn't need permission from anyone to fill an envelope with hot air and steam pressure." She scrolled further down the thread, genuinely delighted by one particular reply near the bottom.

"honestly? respect. good for the demi-humans. this is the first faction all game that's made me actually think twice before grabbing free resources"

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"...See, that's the part I actually love," she said, tapping the comment. "It's not just consequence for consequence's sake. People are walking away from this actually understanding something about the world, instead of just being punished and moving on. That's, that's kind of the whole point, honestly. Sorrel never wanted obedience. She wanted people to actually think about what they were taking."

Bram considered that for a moment, then glanced toward the half-finished zeppelin frame visible through the workshop window.

"...Meanwhile you're building an entire flying ship and the worst thing you've done to that forest is repair a bio-dome seal."

"That's the goal," Arista said, satisfied, already standing to get back to work. "Build the thing that gets us there fastest, without needing to take anything that wasn't freely offered."

Arista grabbed her E.H. tablet out of her inventory, the same semi-translucent, blue-bordered slate every player carried, and tapped out a message before she'd even fully settled back at her workbench.

[Private Message to: Nettle]"have you been chased away by the demi-humans yet?"

The reply came back almost immediately, entirely too smug for Arista's liking.

[Private Message from: Nettle]"of course not. when we started building we didn't even know the demi-humans were the clue. our boat's complete and sitting at the Elven shoreline right now. we set sail tomorrow."

Arista stared at the message for a long moment, genuine surprise mixing with a small, grudging flicker of competitive irritation.

[Private Message to: Nettle]"...wait, complete? already?"

[Private Message from: Nettle]"yep. hull, boiler, rigging, provisions, full crew roster. we're actually ahead of schedule."

[Private Message to: Nettle]"how"

[Private Message from: Nettle]"guild has sixty people working on it, Strawberry. you're building a zeppelin with, what, four crew members and yourself doing most of the actual engineering personally? we've had entire subteams on hull, rigging, provisions, and navigation running in parallel since day one."

Arista set the tablet down for a moment, staring at her own half-finished gondola frame, the strange debris piece still sitting on her workbench beside Colm's half-charted current notes, and let out a long, half-amused, half-genuinely-annoyed breath.

"...Figures," she muttered, mostly to herself. "Figures, if you've got sixty people on one project instead of me stubbornly insisting on doing most of it myself."

She picked the tablet back up, typing a reply with only slightly wounded pride.

[Private Message to: Nettle]"we're building the FIRST current map this world has ever had. real data, live observation, no guesswork."

[Private Message from: Nettle]"and we're already sailing tomorrow, with an entire elven shoreline crowd showing up to watch us launch. race is still on, Straw. good luck with your very small, very slow-going crew of five."

[Private Message to: Nettle]"the zeppelin isn't slow, it's THOROUGH"

[Private Message from: Nettle]"sure it is. see you on the other side. assuming you actually make it there before we do."

Arista set the tablet down, staring at the ceiling of her workshop for a long moment, competitive frustration warring with genuine, reluctant admiration.

"...Sixty people," she repeated out loud, to no one in particular. Bram, working nearby on the gondola's structural bracing, glanced over.

"...What?"

"Nettle's guild finished their entire ship. Already. It's sitting on the Elven shoreline, ready to launch tomorrow." Arista gestured helplessly at their own considerably less complete zeppelin, envelope only half-stitched, engine still awaiting final assembly. "Sixty people, apparently, working in parallel this entire time while I've been insisting on personally hand-forging half our own components because I don't fully trust anyone else's tolerances yet."

Bram considered that for a moment, setting down his own tools. "...Do you want to actually delegate more? We could pull in additional hands. Petrov's back from vacation, for what it's worth, logged in about an hour ago."

Arista sat with the idea, the old, familiar instinct to control every single tolerance personally warring against the hard-earned lesson of Petrov's grids, the seven-million-strong global quest, an entire continental railway built by people she'd learned to trust with pieces she hadn't personally touched.

"...Yeah," she said finally, decisively, already reaching for her notebook to restructure the crew assignments. "Yeah, okay. Pull in more hands. I want this thing finished properly, not just finished by me alone out of stubbornness." She grinned, competitive spirit fully reignited now. "Let's see if we can actually catch up before Nettle gets too comfortable with her head start."

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