World Conquest Online

His Aunt went quiet for a few moments, as if her mind was working through everything she had been told and trying to come up with a response that was helpful. Dom and the others sat in silence, whilst Alice was giving off a faint trail of excitement as she was ordered by one of her own personal heroes.

"Let me be honest with you, now you have been honest with me. Hopefully you will understand what I am trying to achieve by telling you all of this. Firstly, for those whom are not my Nephew, I know about you all. Whilst I may not have been in Dominic’s life, I have followed it, I know who has been supporting him, who has been by his side and I have kept my distance because I know he created a family of his own there. So I know that what I tell you now, if I told Dominic alone, he would tell you anyway." His Aunt began, laughing to herself as she said it, as if a barrier had been removed amongst the many that she held up. Dom had only spoken to her a few times, but even he could see a visible shift in her response. "Firstly, we are not aware of who created the game. The Headsets do have a cost, but they are almost at the value of the materials and what ever man power was used to build them. We do not know who builds them, we have access to the multiple distribution companies that are selling and moving them, but even they do not know where they are manufactured or who by."

There was silence as the four of them listened to her as she spoke, all with different looks of reaction on their faces as she revealed things to them that most of the public wouldn’t even be aware off. Using technology created by an unknown and manufactured in an unknown place was worrying enough as a start, especially when deployed on such a large spectrum.

"We have disassembled and attempted to reverse engineer the headsets and before the general public had access to the game, we had been testing it for a few weeks. We had some Lords in the wilderness and Adventurers trying the mechanics and pushing themselves to the extreme. We had one person that died on purpose multiple times to test the impacts on his body. I will be honest, there is a limit to how many times a player can die before the game puts them on a prolonged break." She explained to them, the realisations hitting them that there was a lot more to the game than they expected. "The game knew that we were testing it though and put us in a test server, before resetting itself before the true launch. The World we play in now is very different to the one we tested, it feels a lot more alive. But that isn’t the point, technologically the game was safe and we could not find anything within our tests that made us think this game should not go public, instead we saw the huge benefits of it."

She paused for a second, taking a drink of some water that she had beside her. She looked towards her Guards for a moment, before looking back down at the notes she had wrote down when Dom was talking earlier. A small smile appeared on her face before she continued.

"Lots of benefits, which is why we allowed it to spread and see the impacts it had. The many Blogs and Sponsorships that you see, we don’t know who funded it, we have traced the money and it goes nowhere, a black hole. But, the impacts the game has shown have made us push ahead as the positives are currently out performing the risks." Camilla continued, "Skills that you learn in the game, your body remembers them in reality. You learn to hunt and fish in the game, your body and mind remember how you did it and you can perform it here. You learn to build a house, create horse shoes, bake bread. Tasks that need a specific set of skills to perform, you can learn them and recreate them in reality and they work. That alone is a benefit that outweighs the risk, a game that allows us to learn and develop ourselves in our sleep so that we can perform our tasks better in reality. However, that is just the start. Imagine, you exercise, train your body with weights, swim for miles and miles in the game, your character improves it’s fitness and strength. But for some unexplainable reason, some of that seems to pass on to your body when you awake. It’s almost like your body is repeating those exercises in some way and improving itself. It’s not obvious at first, but we saw it over the period of a few weeks with those in the testing period and there was clear difference to their bodies from before the game and after. We did some A B Testing, where half continued their normal life and others did nothing afterwards, and both saw improvements."

Dom had felt improvements himself, and it was clear that Kai had lost some weight. Andrew had also commented on feeling stronger and a better swimmer since starting. His Aunt paused, to allow them all to take the information in, before continuing again.

"Now, I think some of my earlier explanations in the Auditorium make more sense to you about the importance and implications of the game. Especially around the dangers that could come with it. If you are over performing in the game, then you are learning and developing yourself at a fast rate. If you are creating a safe space for development for the Western Kingdom to Train it’s Military, then the Eastern Empires may want to say something about that. There is Subterfuge in both reality and the game. If you die in the game, you have to start over and the real life implications aren’t a joke. People that have died in the game have some mental and physical weakness for a period of time in reality, a worthwhile sacrifice maybe for how ingrained they both are." His Aunt continued as they all listened, Kai and Alice were nodding along, whilst Andrew and Dom were worried at what could potentially be coming next. "Now, the easiest way to remove you from the Game World, which is extremely vast, is to just remove you from reality. In the Game World it is mostly wild, with no Civilisation, roads or ways to travel. Here everything is still connected in some way, if I remove you here, then I solve two problems."

"So Dom is a target of his own success?" Kai asked suddenly, the first person to speak and interrupt his Aunt as she explained the situation to them.

"Not yet, but he will be. Or at least I do not think he is yet. But if he reaches the Top Spot, people will definitely look in his direction." She replied honestly, "At the moment, you are an unknown, a Player playing for himself is great for now. There are many Players like Dom who are within the Top Rankings that aren’t people of note. To be honest, I would say that is one of the advantages of the game that it is giving everyone an equal chance. Or almost equal, I need to look in to how you got an S Grade, the highest I have heard is an A and that was extremely hard to acquire."

"But if his Identity is exposed, people will watch him or approach him?" Alice asked, also seemingly aligned with the conversation.

"Correct, Dom has an army of Eleven Thousand Warriors and growing, a massive feat compared to many other players. The most I am aware off of Players connecting is a unit of around two Thousand Soldiers. The training is different, but if Dom’s units are well trained by Heroes such as Subutai and Crassus, then the experience weighting would put Dom’s forces ahead in a clash. If someone can get Dom on side then he is a huge game changer, but if he won’t join them, then he needs removing from the table. Do you understand?" Camilla replied as she looked towards Dom, a victim of his own accidental success.

"But he is your Nephew, if people knew, would that protect him, or make him more of a target?" Kai asked, as Dom and Andrew sat there as everyone talked about Dom as if he wasn’t in the room.

"A bit of both depending on who it is, but mostly protection. However, my power isn’t what it once was. I am respected, and in some cases I am feared. I know what I once was, however times have changed and my power can only continue for so long." She replied with a sigh, her honesty surprising Dom and those sat with them. "That is why I have pushed for a Marriage Alliance. If Dominic is engaged to one of the people I have proposed for him, he has another layer of protection through their family names. A Marriage to a Royal or a Leading Family can bring a second layer of defence for him. They can lean on me and he can lean on them. There are names I wanted to include, but some families do not see the value or are not quite at the level they need to be. A Marriage brings Security and Resource, they don’t need to know who Lazarus is "

Dom sat there in silence, whilst Kai looked towards Alice to see if she reacted. She didn’t and he breathed a slight sigh of relief as she wasn’t on the list and didn’t seem to mind. He then remembered that she wasn’t even aware of the list or the situation and would probably need to be included in the conversation going forwards. Andrew instead seemed to be lost in his own thoughts and Kai wondered just what those thoughts could be.

"A Marriage Alliance doesn’t just benefit Dominic though." She continued, as she breathed a deep breath again. "Dominic is the last of the Lazarus family and with my Daughter, the last of the Mordred. He isn’t the only one that needs this alliance, we do as well. When I eventually am gone, which I hope will not be for many many years, Dom and my Daughter will have no one to protect them, my enemies may come out of the dark. A Marriage Alliance protects them both as well."

"Who is your daughter?" Andrew asked, whilst Dom also looked at his Aunt at this point, not being aware of who she was either.

"She’ll come to you herself when the time is right." Camilla explained, as she turned back to Dom. "Everything I have told you is so you are aware of the wider situation and that you need to protect yourself. I will also do what I can do protect you, as will Chancellor Phillip. I will support you however I can in the game and however I can in the Real World. You are my family and that is all that matters."

"Aunt Camilla." Dom began, wanting to ask her some questions, but she put her hand up to stop him.

"You have been here too long, you have limited time left before I expect you will want to return to your game and many things you will want to achieve before then. Tomorrow your classes begin and then you need to choose your volunteer role. Do not look, I am putting you in a Military Role within the camp so that you can experience training alongside some of your future peers and subordinates." His Aunt explained, before looking towards the door, her voice sounding tired at this point, before returning to her normal sternness that most people feared. "I will see you again in three days, I expect some progress."