by Nikita Thorn
Morning was approaching, and the rising sun had colored the edge of the eastern sky rosy orange and white. This quest, again, turned out very differently from what Seiki had imagined, but somehow this bitter-sweet end to it was rather fitting.
“The demon lord will never find our son, now,” Iyo said. A tender smile had touched her lips. “My danna-sama had been entangled in a web of war and strife his whole life, and it had brought nothing but sorrow. It is too late for us, but we want a life of peace for our son. I have made Ayame promise never to let him learn about what had happened here and to raise him far away from the chaos of the world.”
Ayame had run back from the house, with the newborn in her arms, fast asleep in the middle of the rag wrapped around him. Seiki looked at the tiny new human being, who was oblivious to the tragedy about to happen, and he wondered if he would someday find out the truth that would shatter his illusion of the world.
“My dear,” Iyo whispered, as she gently took the baby in her arms. “Do not seek to avenge us.”
She then started to sing softly:
The bright ring of bronze
Above the fluttering flags
Sounds to remind you.
Here, a green pond of lilies.
There, the glory path of ash.
“My danna-sama wrote this after the years of endless bloodshed grew heavy on him,” she said. “A soldier’s lullaby to his son. A life of peace, over a life of violence.”
“The glory path of ash,” said Seiki, softly.
Iyo smiled at him, but said nothing. Cradling the newborn in her arms, she started singing the verse once more.
All his life, Seiki had never been able to understand and appreciate poetry, but now he sat quietly and listened to her voice in the half-light.
Slowly and silently, from the eastern horizon, above the shadowy sea of dense trees that made up the Wilderness, a new day was emerging, peering through with its first streaks of light, filling him with a strange kind of emotion that was neither joy nor sorrow, but perhaps a bit of longing, as well as a bit of hope.
Seiki took a deep breath to fill his lungs with the fresh morning air as he watched the red sun struggling up in a long steady climb above the darkness.
The dawn, too, was copper-colored.
Chapter 20
Time froze again once the sun had cleared the trees and turned bright yellow.
Iyo had faded away after bestowing on them a few parting gifts, leaving Mairin her green +24 defense obi with extra health generation, Ippei a +24 attack + 12 defense Imperial Dagger, which was a major upgrade from his old one, and Seiki a pair of black slim Silver-Trimmed Sode, meant for his currently empty shoulder slot. She had given her newborn son to her servant Ayame, who, in tears, had made her way over the hill toward an undisclosed destination with the baby, far away from the reach of the Demonic Clan.
“Why would the Demonic Clan want the baby?” asked Mairin, once they were alone again in the quiet clearing in front of the house. The sun was now halfway up the sky in what appeared to be a lovely morning. The quest had pretty much ended, granting Seiki the most experience he had ever earned in one go. But after such a strenuous fight, no one seemed to want to move just yet, so they sat there stretching their legs.
Now that it was day, the old lady soon returned to her house and asked if they had seen the ghost of a pregnant woman. She then explained that she had hurried off to a nearby temple and had gotten a charm from a senior monk to hang in front of her door to ward off evil spirits.
“Your behavior was rather misleading,” Mairin pointed out. “I really thought you were going to turn into an Onibaba.”
The old lady’s eyes widened in alarm. “Onibaba? More evil spirits? Where?”
After that, the old lady—who had turned very superstitious—asked them to take away suspicious items from her house that could have attracted the ghost.
“These bronze plates had been gathering dust in the corner of the house when I moved in a few years ago. At the time, I thought nothing of them.” The old lady shivered as she put a pile of eight Shinshioka Army Nameplates [Instance Item] in front of them. “But I just noticed they all had names carved on, which is rather disturbing. I can see you are from Shinshioka, so do return these to their owners or their families so the spirits of the dead won’t come haunt me.”
Seiki had to chuckle quietly. He was carrying Master Tsujihara’s nameplate on him in one of his charm slots, and he honestly would not mind a haunting once in a while.
As Ippei picked up the nameplates, a notification flashed for all of them.
Quest accepted: The Missing Eight [Level 16].
The Missing Eight [Level 16 Quest Information]: return the nameplates to Mani Shrine in West City, Shinshioka. You will receive: 325 XP.
Ippei called it an optional free-XP follow-up quest, whose purpose was often simply to send people back to quest hubs.
“So, this was like an instance in an instance?” Mairin said. “Because first we instanced into this scenario with the old lady’s house, then from there we instanced again into Iyo’s memory.” She looked at the pile of bronze plates. “When we looted these plates from the dead bodies, they were brand new, but now they’re all kinda grimy.”
Seiki supposed she was right. The bronze had now turned very dark and the names could hardly be made out anymore under a thick layer of dust.
“Oooh, I know!” Mairin said, all of a sudden. “The baby is actually the Shogun’s illegitimate child, so the Demonic Clan wants him for ransom.”
Ippei laughed. “I don’t think so.”
Seiki was inclined to agree with Ippei, since that did not explain the business with the book of puzzle poems. His best guess was that Iyo’s husband knew secrets that led to treasures, which was why everyone was after the family.
“Oh, okay, here’s another theory,” said Mairin. “The demons need the baby’s blood to complete some demonic ritual to, uh, claim full ownership of the light-forged sword, like maybe to sever its ties to the light source and turn it full evil.”
“Now you’re just making up random things,” said Ippei. “I’ve never heard of anything about demonic rituals.”
“It makes perfect sense. Since the father died, they could not complete the ritual, so they need the baby instead,” explained Mairin. “Same bloodline and stuff, you know.”
“If it’s important, it will come back in a later quest,” Ippei said. “Or you can ask the Society. They keep track of the storyline.”
The kitsune girl continued, thoughtfully, “Here’s a guess: the father used to be a general in the Shogun’s army, then one day he came across this book of rare poems, and he realized the Shogun had been hoarding treasures. So, he did the right thing and tore out the pages and distributed them to the common people. Shogun got mad, put him on house arrest, demanded he gave the book back, and then the Demonic Clan thought, hey, this guy has fallen out of favor and is on house arrest, let’s bribe the guard and go get his light-forged sword so we can turn it evil!”
Seiki thought about it. “That’s actually a decent theory,” he admitted.
Mairin seemed pleased with herself. “Okay, now I can sleep,” she said. “And it explains the world, too. This story, hence the treasures, hence the uniques, hence puzzle poems everywhere, scattered among the people.”
Seiki unstrapped his armguard and took out the neatly folded piece of paper. Now with Mairin’s unproven story to go with it, the tiny item seemed much more significant. It was not very thick, and could not contain that much text, but it would certainly be enough for a short poem.
“Let me see?” said Ippei.
Seiki handed it to him. “If you can do me a favor, uh, please don’t read it.”
Ippei held the folded paper up to the sunlight as he tried to guess the content of what was inside.
“You’re still going to deliver that thing to Kano Castle?” asked Mairin. “I thought you said that when
the outlaws wanted it, Ichikeya was okay with giving it to them, so it must not be that important.”
Seiki turned to her. “The outlaws were actually after the Fuoka Army key,” he clarified. “Which everyone seems to want but no one seems to know what it’s for. And then there are these anonymous messages tipping people off about stuff happening.”
“Right,” said Mairin. “The key.” She shook her head. “This is even more complicated than the main storyline.”
“You see, this is why I stay away from all these social experiments,” Ippei said, and he handed Seiki back the folded piece of paper. “If I want more drama and politics in my life, I’d just do more of… real life.”
“What social experiment?” Seiki asked.
Mairin rolled her eyes. “Don’t get him started on his pet theory.”
“It’s a good theory,” insisted Ippei. “Okay, you see, in the contract there’s this anonymity and non-disclosure clause where they make you agree never to contact other players outside the game or have any kind of public discourse about the game content. That’s bad from a marketing perspective, so the only reason they’re doing this is to prevent any kind of large scale meta-gaming.”
“Okay, go on,” said Seiki. He did not remember anything like that, but again he had only skimmed through all the complicated legal jargon.
“The technology’s not cheap,” continued Ippei. “Subscriptions alone aren’t going to cover their cost, so I’m sure a lot of the game is actually funded by research. What they have here is a perfectly controlled environment, so they can look at, say, how the economy works, as well as player behavior and motivation: quest completion rates compared to rewards, brawl rates compared to patrol density. For example, right now you lose only two honor points for instigating violence in Shinshioka. Next patch they might up it to four, and see if PVP in the city goes down. And it’s all quantifiable, since one Honor Point comes down to about 12 minutes of your play time.”
Mairin hid a smile. “And you know this because…”
“Because I’m paid to do this sort of things in real life,” said Ippei. “Not that I like it. It just pays well. You want a job, you go into data.”
The kitsune giggled. “And that’s exactly why your worldview is skewed in that direction. How would you explain your War Games?”
“Oh, now that’s the commercial bit, aka the good bit,” said Ippei. “Solid, engineered fun. No politics, no drama, no moral dilemmas, just pure escapism.”
“A bit biased coming from a self-proclaimed war player, don’t you think?”
Ippei looked at her. “They frame it as simple good versus evil and let you play with light sabers.”
“I guess you’ve got a point.”
The samurai’s eyes widened in excitement. “It doesn’t get better than that. And you should see what happens when you defeat a war boss. Now, that’s worth paying for.”
“I see,” said Seiki. It made sense now why most people were out the West Gate, taking advantage of the alleged feel-good mechanisms. He was about to tell Ippei that he thought the research bit was spot on, when Seiki had to curse.
“What time is it?” he asked Ippei, as he was reminded that he was probably part of whatever research was funding the game and the powers that be were keeping a close watch on his log-in hours.
Ippei checked his gold watch. “You don’t want to know,” he said.
Seiki leapt to his feet. “Is it bad to log out in an instance?”
Technically, it should be all right. But since it was not a normal situation, and they still faced the possibility of phasing out to a whole Rogami army, they thought it would be safer to make a run for Mannaka Village and end the night there, which in theory should take no more than ten minutes.
Seiki sighed. “I suppose ten minutes isn’t going to make a difference now.”
Earlier, the old lady had pointed out the direction toward the instance exit, which was back the way they had come from. They wasted no more time in mounting up.
“On my signal,” said Ippei, as they started riding down at a trot past the old lady’s house.
Like Ippei had said, it was morning in the instance, but very late into the night in the real Wilderness. As they started to phase, the sun quickly moved across the sky, dragging the tree shadows around them shorter and longer as if they were gray rubber bands. Seiki could feel the temperature drop and the air damper as they plunged directly into the dead of the night. His eyes did not have time to adjust and he found himself squinting as he struggled to see ahead. For a moment, he could not make out anything at all. Even Ippei’s black mount, slightly ahead of him, seemed invisible.
“Follow me,” said Ippei, just loud enough to be heard over the dull rapid hooves on the grass. “We should completely phase out in a second.”
Seiki had anticipated many possible scenarios. He had hoped for the best, which would be a completely empty forest. But he had also prepared for the worst, which had something to do with a figure in red and white and a particular gigantic rectangular blade.
Ippei said, “Now!” and they burst into a full gallop.
As they sped through the enveloping darkness, the first thing Seiki noticed was a line of orange flames to his left. And before he had time to wonder what it was, voices of perhaps more than a hundred people immediately filled the air around him.
It took Seiki a second to understand that the flames were from numerous torches within a large group of people about a hundred feet away on his left. In front of the group were all ryoushi with bows in their hands, and interspersed among their ranks were men in uniform, holding up flags of blue and white.
On the opposite side, toward Seiki’s right, also about a hundred feet away was another large group of people. Seiki caught a glimpse of a familiar face in red and white, with the famed Oni Cleaver.
“Whoa,” said Mairin in surprise at the sight.
Trying to make sense of the scene, Seiki glanced back to his left, where a line of ryoushi had formed. Still bursting ahead with the full momentum of the gallop, he could now glimpse their identities.
Isamu of the Fuoka Army [Level 17]
Mieko of the Fuoka Army [Level 17]
Kazuha of the Fuoka Army [Level 19]
Hideto of the Fuoka Army [Level 18]
Noriaki of the Fuoka Army [Level 16]
At the near end of the ryoushi line was Aina of the Fuoka Army [Level 22], a young woman in blue and silver armor with a small ponytail, whose crescent silver bow was fully drawn with three arrows in it. “First line, Rapid Shots,” she shouted, her voice ringing clear above the noises. “Aim high.”
A moment of silence seemed to fall as the ryoushi drew their bows.
In truth, Seiki and his friends had phased out in the middle of a battlefield, right in the line of fire.
“Release!” shouted Aina.
Seiki could clearly hear the hum of multiple bowstrings twanging in unison as a blanket of arrows, only a portion of which could be seen in the dim torch light, flew toward them.
Without thinking, Seiki pushed down his energy onto the stirrups and turned Fubuki sharply to face the incoming arrows, before dismissing her. The second he landed on the forest floor, he stepped out with his right foot and swept the Jade Steel up diagonally with both hands. Behind him, Ippei let out a cry and the Battle Shout suddenly filled Seiki with a flood of energy, lending his move a bit more speed and power. There had not been any time to warn his friends, and Seiki really had no confidence if this was going to work. But his friends seemed to grasp what he was trying to do, and they had scrambled behind the relative safety of his Upslash.
Seiki winced as arrows of all sorts rained down around them. He only now became aware that there were different grades of these, with varying speed and damage, all of which felt different when they whisked past, grazed or pierced through his armor into his flesh. It was like being sprayed with droplets of oil which Seiki could not quite tell whe
ther they were searing hot or freezing cold. The steep drop in his health almost blurred his vision, before Mairin’s triple-bout Spirit Mend filled most of his health again.
“Agh,” Seiki grunted at the disorienting health fluctuation.
Ippei grabbed and pulled him in a direction, as a signal for him to start running. They wasted no more time and dashed ahead on foot out of the line of arrows. A quick glance showed that Ippei had used his Brace to save most of his health, and Mairin had already turned into a white fox, perhaps to offer a smaller target.
The trio threw itself behind a patch of wild growth beside a large black pine tree. In their back, another volley of arrows had launched, before the remaining members of the Fuoka Army charged forward on their mounts in a burst of hooves, curses and shouts.
Seiki sat down on the damp forest floor and let out a long exhale, his mind still in a slight daze.
“Nice flash tanking,” said Ippei, as he casually broke off the shaft of an arrow lodged in his thigh and tossed it aside. “Now I have hope.”
Seiki did the same and rid himself of the few arrows stuck in his limbs, noting that one that had pierced clean through his leg—marked Enchanted Steel Arrow—seemed to have done more damage than the others. Mairin filled the rest of his health.
“Oooh.” The kitsune squinted as she tried to identify who the opponents were. “Fuoka Army and Rogami?”
“They’ve been at war with each other,” said Seiki. He could not see much from where they were hiding, but a rather chaotic battle had broken out. The Fuoka Army were managing their side with militaristic precision, with voices shouting orders for different formations, and it seemed that the Rogami Clan had been caught a little off-guard.
“Well, that worked out pretty well.” Mairin nodded to herself. “I guess the enemy of your enemy is your friend.”
Ippei chuckled. “Only until they discover that you’re carrying a Sheathed Blade around in the Wilderness at Level 11,” said the samurai, before looking at Seiki. “Which is why it’s time for you to log out now.”
“What about you?” asked Mairin. “And shouldn’t we go to Mannaka now?”