Bonus Chapter: the Forest Bandit Camp Punitive Expedition Force Adventures
This is happening during the 3.5 in game months (1 month, 2 weeks in real life time)Ben spends renovating the Ruins.
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The first episode of the Forest Bandit Camp Punitive Expedition Force Adventures had been uneventful. in fact two following it were the same. audience has nearly hit zero until the firsts Bandit attack happened on the fourth episode.
The audience was fairly good but as the fifth episode was the same as the three first (walking, cooking, talking, picking), the audience left again. and came back at the next attack, to leave again then come back, permanently.
It is only when the tenth episode ended on a Friday evening, after the Bandits chiefs death and the tactical meeting, that players felt something was happening.
By then Ben Varrand was already at the top of the Wall of Fame and known for his various contributions during the Expedition, so the audience finally understood that he was the one they were seeing the story through, players started watching with extreme application.
Everyone wanted to know how Ben Varrand had climbed to the top of the Wall of Fame chart.
Everyone wanted to See him battle his way into the Bandit Camps.
Everyone Wanted to see him as he was the top player of the most played and technologically advanced game in the world.
So players waited impatiently for the weekend to pass and the next episode to be released.
Heart thumping they saw Ben Varrand and his two companions leave for the secret spy mission. when Ben used the Spirit of the Wolf skill, the chat rooms were overflowed with players speculating on the skill.
Many believed that Ben Varrand was a Shape shifter, others thought that he was a Magician, many believed he processed a special item permitting him to shift.
At the end of this episode the near to the totality of New Roads! players was watching.
When the spying mission was over they marvelled at how Ben was able to influence the officials decisions and tactics by contributing his own touches to their plan.
When the groups left towards the four Bandits Camps at night fall players knew that the next episode would be epic.
To their surprise, the next episode did not follow the top Avatar Ben Varrand but a simple sword wielding player part of the forces attacking the Western Camp.
At first the reactions of the viewers were negative, but when the attackers went down the Camp in deadly silence all reproaches ceased.
They saw the bodies of the bandits being burned and the loot being pilled, waiting for the Expedition trailer to come.
To their desperation, the soldier they were seeing the event through was part of the group who had to wait for the wagon.
As the player waited they saw a black pillar of smocke rise into the sky, then a second one.
That is when the video feed of the player ended.
The next days episode was of the Southern Camp attack.
This time they were seeing it through the eyes of a female players using a bow and arrows.
They saw her slither through the trees, climb on the platform and silently take care of a lookout then shoot the herb braids into the fires and huts.
As the men on the floor went into the camp, the female archer shoot a few bandits trying to escape.
The attack had been so silent and rapid that none of the bandits had realised what was going on.
Many of the people watching the slaughter felt a shiver run down their spine.
It had all been so clinic and efficient...
By the fifteenth episode, featuring a male archer, the audience knew what to expect.
Yet, compared to the other times the attack was not stealthy enough. when the player they were following had killed his lookout, they saw, at the same time as him a platform that had not been cleared of his bandit.
The player had already pulled an arrow when the bandit, already holding his warning sound horn, had looked down at the floor and noticed the attacking men.
As the lookout blared the horn warning his companions of the attack, the player shot the arrow. somewhere near, another archer had noticed the bandit as another arrow planted itself in its body.
Yet the man did not fall, so they both shot another arrow, and another. As a ray of light shone on the platform they saw that the man was long dead.
In the meantime the battle on the floor had ended. the bandits had tried to resist the assailants but the smocke and the element of surprise had been too much for them.
The third and final black pillar rousing to the sky was the final moment of the episode.
The next episode was to feature the attack on the final and most well defended and reemforced bandit camp.
A few players had started discussing the possible internal defences of the ruins using a map of the ruins post-Expedition Force and pre- Restoration Project.
Neet.tv organised a small talk show before the episode, inviting players to give their opinion and ask their questions to one of New Roads! Game Masters through a simple phone call.
One of the questions asked was why the NPCs followed Ben's orders without questions.
The answer amazed everyone as the GM simply said that during the Expedition travels Ben had progressively risen his familiarity with the entire Force through his well cooked meals, gentle words, bandages, constant efforts to improve the soldiers food, dice games and simple conversation.
That is when the players watching the show from the very beginning understood that those days of travels they had found boring had been the foundation of Ben Varrand Success.
Another question had been about Ben's Spirit of the Wolf skill.
To this the GM had simply said that the explanation would come in today's episode.
Then people asked how Ben had been put in charge of the Renovation Project.
Once again the GM told the players to keep watching the series season up to its very end.
By the time the show was over, only a few questions had been answered. Most of them were about the game itself, not Ben Varrand or the Expedition Force.
When the episode started, Ben, his 10 men and three other units were already closing in on the front entry of the Ruins.
They took cake of a platform look out and a few perimeter guards, piling them further away from the entry.
Then two archers took care of the sentry guards. their bodies were removed, they saw Ben look inside the Tunnel, grab one the guards and interrogate them.
His face could not be seen as they were seeing the whole action from his eyes but the terror on the guards face and the sweetness in his voice were enough to make them all wonder if the man that they were all admiring wasn't borderline sadistic.
When they watched as he broke a few fingers to get his answers many felt the same shivers of dread run down their spines as they had felt in front of the second camp attack.
The information he gathered from the tortured guard made the infiltrating party much easier.
The team leaders decided of each others role and went inside the Tunnels.
As they understood that the Expedition Forces Hero would not be part of the Front line
But a mere Go to boy, the audience could not hide their disbelief. Was that going to be all?
Many of the players who had gone to the ruins expecting to find some treasures but had come back empty handed were speechless when they saw the armoury. They then became jealous as they saw Ben put a number of swords into his backpack, clearly stealing them.
They watched as he and his men kept emptying the various rooms one after the others.
When Ben received the message that the third camp attack was over he decided to change his plans hand move to the front line by exploring an unsecured part of the Tunnels.
They saw him as he discovered the farming material, then had his conversation with on of his soldiers. They heard him talk about the old and forgotten Druids and Spirits.
This caused another big wave of comments, players looked through the official website and all their usual information sites, not finding any mention of the Druids Magik in any of them.
The uproar continued on the net as on the screens, Ben slit the farmboy's throat and walked past the obelisk towards the big oak door.
Those who had visited the Ruins knew that there was a third entry in this direction, they were impatient to see how Ben would deal with the situation.
To their surprise he seemed to understand the dangers as he decided to use ruse over brut strength.
As he chatted with the guards he slowly obtained information about what level of defence to expect then, when the charade was out, he and his men disposes of the guards.
Players opened their eyes in big as they saw the treasures rooms full of coins, jewels and precious stones then the works of arts and stone covered weapons and armours.
When the painting was recovered they felt the same surprise as Ben as they understood that this portrait was the reason for the expedition.
Then Ben Varrand asked for help.
Once again, he had broken free of all expectations. when the reemforments arrived, he divided the chain of command and they stormed the third entry.
It was the most direct combat scene the audience had seen since the beginning of the camps attacks.
Ben surveyed as his men took on the last guards then he raised his head, noticing a few archers. he shouted a warning to the combatants and quickly the men reorganised themselves.
The archers started shooting the elevated bandits down, the close range warriors took cover in the tunnels, the pikemen used their pikes as spears...
Ben Varrand took his first major wound, an arrow in his leg, yet he still stood up, directing the men into combat and using his own bow.
As the small battle finished, bandages and cataplasms were applied on the wounded. A few of the able men used the lifting platform to secure the higher grounds.
One group went further in, reporting that the access to the platform entry was hidden behind trees, rocks and a layer of camouflaging dangling vines.
Ben was examining the platform mechanism, obtaining its construction plan thanks to his high intelligence, when the NPC in charge of this part of the Expedition Force, Beok Cage came to him. They briefly talked about how the rest of the attack went then of how they would not be able to take everything with them back to Djaden.
It is then that Ben's voracity showed itself, the players helplessly watched as Ben convinced his superior to delete the departure of several days to reap the ruins of all its treasures.
Only the most experienced mmorpg players and the Betas truly understood how difficult such a feat was.
The episode ended after Ben made an inventory of the food supplies found at the ruins.
The backslash of the episode was simply enormous.
The tactics, the treasures, the leadership, the few but intense battles, the Druid's Magik, Ben's proficiency with both a sword and a bow...
It was simply magnificent.
The next evening some of the audience had left the screen, they knew that the battles were over and believed the preparations and the trip back to be as boring as the first ten episodes of the series.
Those were the ones who had not understood how important those boring moments of calm and conversations were to bond with the NPCs
In a way they were right, all that Ben did was cook breakfast, read books from the chiefs chambers, inventory the treasures and supplies, cook lunch, work on the trailers reparations and cook diner.
Then they left the ruins and joined up with the other half of the expedition forces in a clearing.
That is when something weird started to happen: Captain Serena Miller started speaking with Ben about how to renovate the Ruins. She would come every day with new questions, after the third recurrence Ben produced a file using the game's annotation system and gave it to her. Throughout the trip he would add more notes and paragraphs. At some point, graphs, drawings and tables were added to the whole thing. the file now looked so professional that it was obvious that Ben Varrand had spent some time researching about renovation projects presentations and applications, their effects on the economy, the population and the environment. She gave him a letter to pass to a certain Kaden.
Other than that Ben would cook and read. At a point, he finished an entire collection of books and received some reward from it, including a set of skills and extra stats.
All the players that had seen this went to the book stores and bought a book collection for themselves. For a while the price of a book skyrocketed, but as only specific series of books actually gave bonuses once read, the fever went down in a few days.
When the Expedition arrived at the City gates, followed by the farmers and some players, everyone assumed that the quest would be over but while all the players received their rewards from the Mage Officer Cage, Ben was asked to wait at least a day.
Apparently his contribution had been so great that his reward could not be set and given by Beok or the Captain.
They watched as Ben checked on last time one the food ration trailer, doing a last inventory, sold his japtem to different stores, getting the appreciation of the few players who seriously followed the path of the merchant and the sarcastic remarks if the regular, unknowing players.
As he then went to the Guilds Training Hall, the players were even more intrigued. As Guilds could only be joined in a Kingdom capital and were useless for players at this stage of the game, players did not have a current need for the Guilds other than the quests they gave for beginning players.
Yet Ben did not go to the Guild clerks themselves but to the Training Hall files with training mannequins, painted targets and sparring areas.
They were listening intently as he talked to the Training Hall Master about the expedition. He gave him Serena's letter and received in return the Martial Artist merged Path and the Murim's Ring.
Both were incredible rewards as the first was permitting the player to use all weapons and armours with no restrictions or penalties and was a never seen before path and the second granted extras stats and 1000 Fame to its wearer along with entry into the secret society of the Murims.
Once again chat rooms were overflowed with comments, many players understood that this ring was one of the reason why Ben was at the top of the Wall of Fame, some believed that it was like cheating, others that the website should calculate Fame only based on the stat, not on props.
There was a short time jump a the Avatar went to sleep then viewers witnessed as Ben visited a few NPCs,
visited a tower to read old dusty books, then ran a series of errands for a drunkard throughout the whole city, negotiating the price of every item to get even one coin more.
Those who had tried the path of the merchant knew how difficult it was and were astonished at how much profit Ben was making with each transaction.
The episode was over when Ben chose not to follow the Merchants Path and activated the object Strange Skill Book.
The following episode was two in game day later, as Ben connected a message informed him that the Strange Skill Book magik's had taken effect. Viewers had since then learned of the particularity of the Golden Pack item and were impatiently waiting to see what skill fitted Ben the best.
They were expecting a combat or magic based skill but it is the Business Owner Skill that showed up.
Once again only the players intently following the Merchants Path or those that Ere actual businessman in real life understood the value of this skill.
As Ben learned the skill and accepted the Merchant Leader as his primary Path, there was only a few people aware of how rare this path was, the rest of the viewers mistook it for a comon merchant based path.
Then the soldiers came. They escorted Ben to the City Lord's Manor where he was welcomed by an old, stricken looking majordome and led to the ball room.
There Ben ,and the viewers alike, were awaited by the totality of Djaden's nobility and high personalities.
As Ben marched towards the Lord, the players heart was pumping like crazy. At last, the adventure was coming to an end! the rewards for all those hours of cooking, spying, planning and fighting...
All were curious what the reward to the top ranked of the Expedition Force would be.
They held their breath as the Lord began talking. As he listed Ben's achievements during the Expeditions, players once again remembered how especialy Ben's work had been.
Their expectations were wildly fulfilled as they saw Ben become the first Noble of New Roads!, receive the renovation project management and get notified of the Quest Completion.
Since the quest was finished so was the recording and the scene faded in darkness as the Nobles were clapping their approval and started surrounding Ben.
For the next three days the websites were only talking of Ben.
"New Roads! first noble! No wonders he is at the top of the Wall of Fame!"
"Did you see this Martial Art Path? What do you think is the trigger to obtain it?"
"I don't know... the Expedition force itself maybe?"
"You have to be close to Kaden, the Training Hall Master"
"I am a beta who started both time in Djaden and never has anyone managed to get that familiar with Kaden. The Martial Art Path was also a surprise to me."
"Me too!"
"Dido"
"Did you see that ring? Its like a cheat item!!"
"Even the noblesse ring is good at this level of the game"
"Why choose merchant as its primary? that was totally stupid!"
"I agree"
"Martial Arts would have been better"
"Why choose merchant in the first place? its a useless and difficult path!"
"Waist of Path slot"
Did you see those moves against the bandit chief? that was without the martial art! imagine with!"
"Wicked!!!"
"About the renovation project, hiw long do you think it will take?"
"I heard he is already working on it!"
"Could be a day or a month..."
"I wanna go see it."
"I already tried. The place is off limits right now."
"What do you think Ben will do after that?"
"Another expedition"
"Grind"
"Anything he does i wanna see it!"
"Yeah"
As the Ben Varrand fever was starting to settle, a new video intitulated
'A night at the forest ruins (Djaden county, Braeen Kingdom)' was uploaded on Ben's Wall of Fame profile.
By the end of the day, it had already been watched more than three thousand times.