I was driven insane to submit this for some reason.

An alternative version of Players will be Dispatched and A High-Level Gamer's Ordeal of Building a Kingdom on Remnant.


Chapter 1:

"Aww… My head." Kieran groans and pushed himself to his feet.

He ignored the faint clamoring around him and clutch his head to stabilize himself. Once he felt he was back to reality, virtual reality, he blinks and frowns at the pop-up message hovering in front of him.

[Unable to connect to servers. Unknown Error]

"How the fuck am I disconnected from the server when no one is frozen or clipping out of existence?" A nearby player drily remarks at his own error message. "Anyone else getting these error messages?"

"I have them." Kieran waves at the player. "What just happened?"

"Dunno. It felt like a large gravity Dust imploded on us and created a black hole."

"Maybe the game just got hacked?" Another player suggested.

It was supposed to be an ordinary organized community event between alliances in Remnant: Online.

An organized massive boss raid in the ocean biomes with players from other alliances joining in on the fun. A very typical thing to do in a massive multiplayer online role-playing game. After all, oceanic monsters are very gigantic and powerful, requiring a lot of firepower and players to takedown.

The meeting point was on a massive player-built floating structure called the Ormshire. A large floating fortress owned and constructed by one of the major regional player alliances within the region, the Avalon-Estria Sovereignty, or Avalon-Estria for short. Every player participating in the event would gather in the floating fortress to hang out while the organizers made the final touches on the preparation and waited for a few stragglers to get onboard.

When the Ormshire finally departed, the gravity Dust keeping the Ormshire afloat suddenly stuttered and pulsated, encapsulating the entire structure in purple, then black.

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[É̷̜̰̝͋͛͗̒́́̇͝͝ŕ̶̤̭̤̲͍̞̣̲̭̙̫̓͠r̸̡̛̬̖̬͉̗̙̱̮̜̋͋̑̏̅͐̀̒̚͝ờ̸̛̳̘̯̺͉̀͗͗͆́ͅŗ̷̬͖͎̩̫̄͐̈́̍͑̊̑́̚ ̷̧̢̡̨̤͍̞̮͗͌̄̆͒̄̆̆C̶̣̬͇̣͈͍͈̘̰͉̼̆̈́͆͋̎͂̐̈̈̀͝͠o̷̧͖͚̦͕̭̞̥̓͗̔̈́̐̍̉̊͜͠ḑ̸̜̦̥̣͚̙̞̲̟͂̈̋̏͑͒̅̏́̈̚͘͜ę̸̢̬̯̖͖͚̘͕̳͕̝̌̎̀:̵̹̗̘̘̣͉̜̯͍̭̞́̐̔̅̒̿͝ ̸͙̿͑̅p̵̢̪̞͚̫̿̀̓̑͆͗̈́͠w̴̦̗̹̣͙̟͕͍̖̄̕ś̸̡͙̪̫͚̯̤̜͖͓̈̈́͘ẍ̴̩̺̣̗͖͚͕̳̪͔͈́̈̑̋ͅ1̸̛̘̃́̂̉͛͝0̴̨̡̛͉̻͍̞͉̣̂͒̔͑̀̾̀͜͜͜1̸̧͈̦͉̦͎̼̄̈̈́̽͐̈̎̕͜ͅ1̶̘̱͔̟̋̂̌͋͐̏͒͗̍̈̇̕x̴̩̠͉̙̹͉̥͒̂̊̾͜ͅA̶̧̻̬̓̉̅̕͜9̵̟̥̹̙͇̪̩͙͌͒̉̑̈́̊̎͘̚͠4̷̛̼͎̩͍̥̽̇́͗̂̄̑͑͝͝͝8̵̢̢̝̺̜̪̩͉̩̜͎͊͑̊̑̅̂̽̏̏͜8̴̭̦̱̲̯͉͊]

Countless unreadable error messages flashed in their VR system, assaulting their mind and vision and rendering everyone unconscious in that instance. By now every player has regained consciousness and was chatting amongst themselves about the strange incident.

"So… Where are we?"

The day and night cycle were bright and sunny a few seconds ago. Now, they've found themselves in unfamiliar lands beneath a starry night sky with a bright and shattered moon.

The Ormshire intercom then went online and begins broadcasting from the Control Room.

"Yes, yes, I can see that we're not where we're supposed to be and we all have the same error notification. Blame the devs or the hackers, whatever is happening. In the meantime, hang tight while we try to figure out what's going on."

"I have a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore." Someone quips.

Kieran snorts at that and opens his player info to check if anything is off.

Name: [Mercenary {N/A}] Kieran
Level: 87
Alliance: Avalon-Estria Sovereignty
Status: None
Aura: [100%] 14968/14968
HP: [100%] 130/130
STR: 103
DEX: 220
AGI: 212
INT: 145
WIS: 192
RES: 60
Perks
Skills
Equipment
Inventory

His in-game user interface then pinged, having received a private chat message. He dismisses his player info screen and opens his user interface to check his private chat. It was from his older cousin, Ian, who was also aboard the Ormshire.

[Ian] Hey. You alright?

[Ian] Kieran?

He begins to type back his response.

[Kieran] Yeah. Just woke up. What happened?

[Ian] We don't know. We're checking the console right now.

[Kieran] What now?

[Ian] Not sure. Wait.

The private chat remained silent for a while, so Kieran figured that Ian is handling something on his end. He dismissed the private chat screen and walks around the plaza. Everyone had resumed their normal idling activities having disregarded the unusual occurrences, though that only applied to the players who are not members of the Avalon-Estria Sovereignty alliance.

'They're on high alert.' Kieran notes.

As far as Kieran can tell, all 'enlisted' members or 'soldiers' of Avalon-Estria are standing guard or frantically scurrying through the Ormshire. A reasonable reaction if you consider how valuable the Ormshire is to Avalon-Estria. It wouldn't do well for the alliance if some hostile player somehow managed to sneak on board and caused damage to the floating fortress much less tampering with it.

Regarding the Ormshire, it is the name of the large floating fortress owned and constructed by the Avalon-Estria Sovereignty alliance. Through a merger of two separate alliances, Avalon and Estria, the two-player group pooled together their members and resources and won the free-for-all battle between player alliances in their region.

The vast resources and control Avalon-Estria gained led to the construction of five floating fortresses with Ormshire being the first. While 'outdated' compared to the other floating fortresses the alliance built, it's still something to be reckoned with.

The fortress is kept afloat by several gravity Dust reactor cores and can be steered like an airship. The overall structure has a circular width populated with numerous sturdy buildings and turrets.

A series of transmitter towers were outfitted near the inner part of the fortress. The Tenebris Towers. It's not a communication or radio tower, but a weapon of sorts. Each tower emits an unnatural frequency that can bring most Creatures of Grimm underneath the alliance control and gives Avalon-Estria access to expendable battle thralls to throw at their enemies.

And that's not the only arsenal Ormshire possesses. The entire structure is armed to the teeth with mountain-shattering artilleries, anti-aircraft turrets, autocannons, giant laser guns… The list goes on. Of course, a massive floating target like Ormshire can't be called a flying fortress if it falls prey to all sorts of BFGs. That's where its all-encompassing multi-shield generator comes into play, allowing the fortress to absorb any attacks and retaliate in kind. The Ormshire has served Avalon-Estria well in its alliance wars against other player groups and in-game enemies and will continue to do so.

The intercom came online again. This time another person was on the microphone.

"Hey. Can anybody see the logout button or menu? Several people are reporting that it's missing. I can't find mine either."

Every player paused what they were doing and glance at each other quizzically, dismissing it as a joke. Those who did check confirmed that there's no longer a logout button, much less a menu. This revelation begins to spread like wildfire. None of the players panicked though. They were more bewildered than scared – even after attempting to perform an emergency disconnect from the virtual space.

Kieran himself tried to log out. Sure enough, the entire menu was completely blank, devoid of any buttons or sliders. Feeling numb, he tried another method and opens the VR overlay to activate the emergency disconnect protocol.

[Warning! Host and VR system missing. Unknown Error]

'No way… Don't tell me.'

"Oh shit. I think we're trapped in the game." Someone said Kieran's thoughts out loud.

/-/

Inside the Ormshire Control Room, a group of high-ranking alliance members was gathered in the room trying to pull things together while addressing the concerns of other players. Whatever happened caused the entire VR system to glitch. They've been scouring through the console to figure out the cause for their predicament but the only thing they could get was a heavily corrupted entry of the event.

The leadership, or a good fraction of it, worked quickly and complied a simple listing of unusual things. The most disturbing was the fact that they can't log out or disconnect from the game, much less from the VR system itself no matter what they'd tried.

"This is crazy." A player called Weymar shakes his head in disbelief. "Check out the member list."

His peers did what Weymar suggested and opened their user interface to access Avalon-Estria Sovereignty's member list.

"The hell…?"

Avalon-Estria Sovereignty's Member List

[Member] [Level] [Rank] [Status]

/-/-/-/

[Rrated] [222] [Autarch] [UNKNOWN]

[King Jay] [192] [Aristocrat] [UNKNOWN]

[Torpere] [198] [Senator] [UNKNOWN]

[Foxy] [214] [Senator] [UNKNOWN]

[Haybales] [217] [Aristocrat] [UNKNOWN]

The Status column for an alliance member list has only two statuses: ONLINE and OFFLINE. It's the first time that any of them had seen the UNKNOWN status. More bizarrely, those with the UNKNOWN status have their entries greyed out and cannot be selected. Even the lowest ranking members within the alliance holding the UNKNOWN status cannot be selected.

Andurmir furrows his eyebrows. "I know Foxy was online because he was gathering materials for crafting and we've talked a bit on the Voice Channel not long ago."

"Can you connect to him on Voice Channel?" Asked Luka, looking more intrigued and excited by their situation than worried.

Name: [Aristocrat] Luka
Level: 204
Alliance: Avalon-Estria Sovereignty
Status: None
Aura: [100%] 21855/21855
HP: [100%] 100/100
MP: [100%] 2100/2100

Luka is a young man with cedar-colored hair and faded grey eyes. His in-game clothing of choice is a white-colored officer's uniform with black outlines and combat boots. He remains seated on a soft-leathered rolling chair while multitasking; answering chat messages through his user interface and entering commands into the Ormshire computer terminal.

"Tried it. Getting an error about invalid player data. But we can still privately communicate with everyone else who's marked online."

"Only 568 are online, according to the player list." A curly-haired young man with glasses reports. "355 are ours, the rests are mercenaries or allies."

"Got it, Deqoin."

The Control Room door slides open and two players, Niiya and Aising, entered the room. The former has an unreadable expression as always while the latter seemed to be in deep thoughts. Without the entire alliance leadership present, much less the Autarch, the male and female duo are effectively the ones in command.

"Any luck?" Niiya asked them.

Luka shakes his head. "No. We've tried the emergency disconnect protocol and a few other technical tricks. All we get is an error message saying that the host and VR system is missing."

"Well, looks like we're truly stuck inside the game then." Pulling up a chair, Aising casually joined the rest at the round table. "Others tried ways to break the VR system so they can disconnect, but nothing is working. So, we'll have to move on to the next issue since we can't do anything about it. Here. Take a look at this." Aising pulls up a window interface and showed it to them. "We're cut off from our resource nodes."

"Something impossible." Niiya stresses. "Unless the alliance is somehow disbanded or we lost all our resource nodes in an instant, we should be seeing non-zero numbers considering what we had."

"And we're cut off from the main stockpile." Aising demonstrated by trying to access the alliance storage for supplies, but the button was greyed out.

"What the hell? We should be automatically receiving resources from the nodes." Andurmir exclaims, putting both hands on his head. "And how are we cut off from alliance storage? That only happens if we're in the Outlands!"

"Maybe we're in the Outlands?" Luka suggests, "Some beta Outland region that never gotten release or in the works. Could explain why everything is glitchy."

"Okay… That doesn't explain how we got here or why we can't log out." Said Weymar.

Luka shrugs, "Suppose we've been transported into the game through a black hole…"

"Whichever the case is," Niiya cuts in. "we're short on supplies. We can't keep the Ormshire floating forever if we don't have resources. We're going to have to make the best of this. In a few hours, I want scouts out to explore the area around us."

"You can't be serious. In case you didn't notice, we're stuck within the game. Our real bodies might even waste away at this rate if we can't get out." Another player, Rival97, broke his silence to voice his protest.

Several others nodded in agreement. The fact that they're trapped within Remnant: Online is much more concerning than an in-game floating structure eventually lacking resources.

"It'll be an ongoing process. Nobody has made a breakthrough so far and I would assume there would be someone among the 568 players who has someone back, in reality, to disconnect them when they find them unresponsive. Ahanu and Christiana will certainly disconnect me and Aising from the VR system in that case."

"Others are trying out ways to break free from their VR and we see no results. Yet." Said Aising. Her blunt statement and aloofness quelled any pointless argument. "Hopefully one of them will get lucky and we can use that. In the meantime, we should make the best of our time while we wait."

Half of the players within the room glance at each other, looking uncertain. Only Luka looks like he's enjoying this. He already figured out what went down and is content with it. Why shouldn't he? Life in the real world is generally boring anyway. The only thing that's not boring is the shenanigans he and Joan would cause and the very rare occasions of close calls in causing a wildfire thanks to her pyromania.

This… This should be much more interesting.

"So, what should we do?" He asks.

/-/

Kieran expected there's bound to be one player among them that would begin to panic or freak out over being trapped inside a game, but everyone is taking it rather well. They're already joking about it, referring to old Japanese entertainments like anime or manga. The likes of Sword Art: Online, Overlord, Log Horizon… All of those references are lost a bit to Kieran as he's not a Zoomer like most of the players here.

It felt like the mood here is no different than normal in a massive player gathering in Remnant: Online. The only thing missing is the occasional death caused by someone's carelessness, mischievousness, or light-hearted fatal retaliation. No one was keen on killing each other for fun because one; they were told not to, and two; they don't know if they'll even respawn if they were to die.

The only problem now is that they're starting to grow bored, and as someone once said: People tend to die when they're bored.

A ping brought Kieran out of his musing. It's another message from his cousin.

[Ian] Where are you?

[Kieran] In the main plaza.

[Ian] Main Plaza?

[Ian] Oh, I think I know where that is.

[Ian] Can you make your way to me?

[Ian] Here. Follow the location I'm sending you.

[Kieran] Yeah.

A small window pops in the private chat containing Ian's current location. Kieran pressed on the window, causing his map interface to display a mark of Ian's coordinates and a path for him to follow.

[Kieran] On my way.

He makes his way through the crowd of players, following highlights on the map interface. Ormshire is a large and complex place. A perfect place to get lost and unwelcomed visitors will have a difficult time infiltrating Ormshire. Only verified visitors, mercenaries, and allied alliance members are allowed onto the floating fortress.

Those who are not verified will have to fight through endless automated weapons platforms, patrols of Aura-enhanced combat androids, and skilled high-level players. Even if he were to go full stealth with his Semblance, he'll be vaporized after several steps. Fortunately, Huang verified and granted Kieran the Mercenary role, allowing him permission to enter Ormshire.

Kieran stepped to the side to allow another patrol of Aura enhanced combat androids through. Standing six feet tall, these combat androids looked like something out of a Halo game due to the appearance of their armor and weapons. Whoever designed them must have been a Halo fan. Accompanying the combat androids are a series of unmanned ground combat machines in the form of tanks and infantry fighting vehicles. It felt like the entire fortress has been automated, which isn't far from the truth.

He then encountered a few Avalon-Estria players who were patrolling the place and were stopped by them. They quickly let him go after a few exchanges of words and soon made it to his destination.

"Took you a while."

Name: [Imperial Guard] Ian
Level: 202
Alliance: Avalon-Estria Sovereignty
Status: None
Aura: [100%] 36294/36294
HP: [100%] 197/197

Kieran's older cousin, Ian, is a fit young man with medium-length ashy colored hair and pale eyes. His in-game alliance uniform is a light grey combat uniform with a faded silver segmented cuirass covering his entire torso. A pair of shin guards, kneepads, heavy black boots, and faulds protected the lower half while Ian's forearms were lacking any protective gear in exchange for some flexibility. On his shoulder is his distinctive unit insignia depicting a phoenix biting on a crown with its beak, and clutching a sword and buckler with its talons.

Another one of the alliance's creative work and dedication.

"I was talking with someone." Kieran fist bumps his cousin. "What's going on? Are we really trapped inside the game or in another world?"

It was supposed to be a light-hearted joke. Kieran doesn't fully buy this fantasy or sci-fi cliché. Although he's starting to believe it. He can chalk it up to a very bizarre in-game technical error or glitch that's keeping everyone trapped, but such a technical malfunction is unheard of. An error of this magnitude would have long disconnected the user. Furthermore, the whole VR system appears to be having some issues; the real-time clock display is now a digital mess.

However, Ian's worried face spoke volumes about their situation. "Definitely trapped inside the game. Every Aristocrats, Senators, and Councilor who're trapped with us were called in for a meeting."

Although Avalon and Estria have been merged for a few years now, they still retain some of their distinctiveness due to the freeform features that allow alliances to customize their member's privileges and ranks. The alliance leadership is interesting per se. Avalon retains their Senate/Council and Estria their Imperial Court with both sides tending to their original territories and needs. When a matter requires both leadership, a Central Assembly is called. This also extends to their 'military' forces to a degree with their own specialties like mechanized cavalry, air force, and navy.

"Why aren't you with them then? Aren't you like their bodyguard?"

Avalon-Estria likes to keep its members organized, semi-professional, but flexible. Especially their best fighters like Ian, hence his rank as an Imperial Guard. Their Avalon counterpart is the Royal Guards who share the exact same role of protecting their valuable interest and important players during alliance wars or in the Outlands.

"There's like thirty or more of us inside watching the place. Good luck getting in."

"So, what now?"

Ian sighs, "Not much we can do but wait for whatever is going on inside. If everything we tried doesn't get us out of the game, then there's nothing we can do other than to try and try." An anxious look flickered in his eyes. He draws in his breath and breathes out. "Don't even get me started on the risk of our real bodies dying from dehydration and starvation… But… Niiya wants us to treat this like the Outlands. Try not to die and claim territories for resources. The usual things we do there."

The Outlands Ian is referring to is an extremely hardcore PvP zone. To sum it up, you cannot access your storage and certainly extended inventories in the Outlands unless you're in a safe zone. If you die in the Outlands, you're losing your entire inventory and equipment you have on you and anybody can loot what you have.

On the bright side, everything in the Outlands is several times more potent and valuable. Alliances, coalitions, and guilds set up territories to mine, gather, and farm resources there all the time. It also gets very ugly when everyone starts warring with each other for those resources. It's a place where new coalitions will be formed and broken between alliances and fierce battles for resource-rich lands will be fought. It's an exciting prospect for many, especially for large alliances such as the Avalon-Estria Sovereignty alliance.

"Why?"

"Because we're cut off from our resources. No resource nodes, no alliance storage, nothing."

"Which means…"

"We can't keep the Ormshire floating without resources coming in. Weapons and other assets will be used up." Ian went silent for a moment before speaking again. "I agree with what they're going for. If we're truly stuck inside the game, we'll need to preserve ourselves. We need a safe place. We don't know what will happen with the VR and game system acting weird. What will happen if we die in-game? That's why they told everyone not to start killing each other."

They have a point. The Ormshire is a floating fortress. A safe haven for them. If it fails due to the lack of resources, they're bound to be in trouble.

"That's… Fair. Wait, I heard that we can still enter our personal domains?"

Personal Domains are pocket dimensions where players can build their own cozy world. If all is lost, they should be able to take refuge there.

"Yeah, but tha-"

Whatever Ian was about to say was cut short by the wailing of the Ormshire attack warning siren. He frowns and tilts his head up. From afar, they could spot a small swarm of flying Grimm heading towards the Ormshire.

"ALERT! NUMEROUS AERIAL GRIMM DETECTED! ALL HANDS MAN YOUR BATTLE STATIONS!"

The Creatures of Grimm are common monsters in Remnant: Online that take on various shapes and sizes; soulless creatures attracted to negative emotions and Aura. Their size is attributed to their old age, strength, durability, and savagery. Some Grimm even has special abilities such as possession or usage of lightning and fire.

"ALERT! NUMEROUS AERIAL GRIMM…"

The siren was abruptly silenced and the intercom overrode the automated PA. A calm and disinterested voice begins talking through the PA.

"Ignore that and stand down. The Grimm are all low-leveled anyway. This is a good opportunity for us to find out where we are. We'll be using the Tenebris Towers to enslave, I mean enthrall the Grimm for scouting."

"He sounds so bored."

Ian lets out a snort. "That's how Luka typically is. Everyone calls him a sociopath. Whether that's true or not in real life, we don't know. At least Joan's onboard. For better or for worst."

Kieran grimaced. Everyone knows Joan. The player who enjoys setting everything and everyone on fire. Dying to a flamethrower is considered one of the worse deaths than getting sliced up, crushed, shot, or blown up. Anyone who uses one is considered insane, sadistic, or really hates something or someone. He'd also heard some rather insensitive remarks that the only reason why Luka was able to discover Remnant: Online was because it's a good outlet for his girlfriend's impulse control disorder.

"Should I be concerned?"

"Nah. But you'll feel bad for whoever is being burned. Oh, the towers are about to activate."

The two of them turn to watch the spiraling towers transmitter towers charged up in a pulsating red light. It begins to hum, funneling the red light around the spiral. The humming frequency increase and the color slowly change from red to dark purple. The dark purple glow condensed itself at the tip of the spirals and emit a burst of energy that sent rippling waves across the land.

[Nevermore Lv88]
Type: Creature of Grimm
Status: None
HP: 20055/20055

A giant avian Grimm called a Nevermore was well within the radius effect of the Tenebris Towers, succumbing to the tower's control. Upon getting hit by the rippling dark waves, the Nevermore let out a squawk and staggered midflight. It haphazardly flapped its wings and shake its head, trying to resist the enthrallment to no avail. Its red glowing eyes and markings on its white mask flicker to dark purple, completing the enthrallment process.

[Enthralled Nevermore Lv88]
Type: Creature of Grimm
Status: [Enthrallment: Avalon-Estria Sovereignty]
HP: 20055/20055

The Nevermore regained its balance and silently hovers in the air, patiently awaiting orders from its newfound masters.

"No wonder the Grimleal often merc with you guys. They love having an army of Grimm." The Grimleal is another sizable player alliance.

"Those guys are more interested in making a Grimm menagerie than anything these days. Probably because of the new Pokemon game that came out last week. They're Pokemon fans, surprisingly not."

"Oh yeah. I saw that commercial. Is it any good? I heard the Nintendo or Game Freak had a new lead designer or something."

"It's been reviewed favorably so far."

Their previous conversion has been completely forgotten as the two begin to talk about this year's anticipated upcoming games released for various gaming platforms.

/-/

The emergency session lasted for a good hour before the remnants of Avalon-Estria's leadership emerged from their meeting room. They immediately send out an announcement to all 568 players to meet at the assembly point. Those who did not attend are players who were tasked to patrol around the Ormshire.

Ian was recalled to his assigned unit to keep a watch over the crowd. Kieran found himself within the crowd of players struggling to see anything due to his height. He's still growing, needless to say. Fortunately, he doesn't need to be tall to see the podium which is evaluated high enough for all to see.

Avalon-Estria's leadership didn't let them wait long; a player dressed in an iconic white-colored officer's uniform made his way up the podium.

Name: [Aristocrat] Luka
Level: 204
Alliance: Avalon-Estria Sovereignty
Status: None
Aura: [100%] 21855/21855
HP: [100%] 100/100
MP: [100%] 2100/2100

Luka taps on the mic intentionally causing audio feedback that annoyed everyone on the Ormshire.

"Glad it works. Now then, Can I have everybody's attention, please? As you all have figured out by now, we're essentially trapped within the game. Maybe even transported to another world. We cannot log out by any means, the atomic clocks that displayed our actual time zones are gone, and we have no connection to the World Wide Web. Of course, this could be an unprecedented freak technical malfunction that affected all of us. Maybe someone back in the real world would notice that we're not responding and disconnect us from the VR system. It doesn't look like that happened yet. All 568 players are accounted for."

Kieran can hear some murmuring around him. There were a few that are anxious about all of this, but everyone remained collectively calm. On the podium, Luka gauged their reaction and continues his address.

"Some of you should have already noticed that the player list is acting strange; the logout and menu settings are gone; those from other alliances might have seen that you can't access your alliance storage or are somehow cut off from your resources nodes. To put it bluntly, we're all in the same boat. Figuratively and literally – Replace the boat with a giant floating fortress for the literal part." Luka pauses for everyone to absorb the information and possibly gravity of their situation. "So! Are we trapped in the game or transported to another world? It's starting to seem likely! We have been hard at work seeing how things work around here." Luka's expression became serious. "But some of them required a volunteer and a player, Dahmiel, was brave enough to volunteer. I'll get straight to the point; we've discovered that you will not respawn if you're killed."

All the players stiffen at that and the dim mood surrounding the Ormshire took a huge dip. Where there's negativity, the Creatures of Grimm will soon follow. Of course, that shouldn't be a huge problem for them with the Tenebris Towers controlling any Grimm that strays close. It still doesn't help their overall situation.

It also hit them that a player had recently died to test this and that was a hard fact to digest.

That is until Luka begins to grin widely.

"Only if you don't fit the requirement for one of our respawn points on the Ormshire. We kicked Dahmiel from the alliance and killed him to see if he'll die for good. Turns out that once you meet the requirement you'll respawn as usual after dying in-game. You won't even lose your items should you be game ended! So, Dahmiel's perfectly fine and this isn't the Outlands! Isn't that a relief?"

There was a brief moment of disbelief before the crowd of players begin booing and hurling insults at Luka for emotionally manipulating them like that.

"Goddammit, Luka!"

"Somehow I'm not even surprised…"

"Boo! Get off the stage!"

"You're a fucking sadist, you know that?!"

"Ass!"

Kieran didn't join the jeering crowd. He was more relieved by the fact that you won't die for reach if you die in-game. They can't die for real, so it would seem. That in and of itself is already a huge relief to many.

"Hahaha! Not sorry! I needed you guys to draw more Grimm to us so we can use them as cannon fodders and scouts. Alright! Settle down before I start killing you and deny you from respawning! Your life is in our hands now! Andurmir will give out more details about our findings in the announcements if you're interested in reading."

"What're we going to do now?" Hollered one of the players in the crowd.

"You're all bored, are you not? Well, lucky for you we'll be assembling an expeditionary force to explore and assess the place. The Grimm we have has already done a good job clearing the Fog of War and attracting hostile attention, but that's all they're good for in this situation. That's why we're sending people out. We'll be treating this like an Outlands expedition, looking for resources and claiming territories. All allied alliances and mercenaries are welcome to do the same. As of now, our main goal is two things: Find resources to keep the Ormshire functioning and discover more about the place we're in. The Ormshire and our assets can remain functional for roughly 53 days at maximum output, and 211 days at the minimum. Hey, maybe we'll find a way back to reality while we're at this."

The players share a glance with one another. Their anxiety has subsided, replaced with uncertainty and a sense of loss. They already tried many things to disconnect from the game to no avail. In-game death is confirmed to be another minor inconvenience unless they don't meet whatever requirement to respawn in which case they'll be put in limbo. Their situation has ultimately shed most of its urgency and thus, they're without direction. They can continue to brute force a solution, though by now, everyone has run out of ideas. They're truly trapped unless some external force helps them.

There's also a lingering fear that their real bodies are slowly dying from either dehydration or starvation if they're truly trapped inside the game. So far, no one is reporting that they're unwell.

And there's the boredom. They would rather not be cooped up in the Ormshire with nothing to do other than fret over being trapped. That's asking for trouble. The remaining alliance leaders are likely not keen on having bored players onboard since that would lead to destruction and chaos. So, why not alleviate their boredom with productive means?

"Those of you within Avalon-Estria will be contacted by their CO and assigned a task. Everyone else who is interested in being part of the expeditionary force will meet in the airfield for deployment. We'll be conserving our transport assets, so the Grimm will be used in their stead. More details will be posted on the announcement board. But first, we'll hunker down and wait for a few things out while we prepare. I'm curious to see if any of you will start to feel dehydrated or hungry."