by Nikita Thorn
For the umpteenth time, Seiki retrieved the mysterious Shussebora Scale from his pocket just to look at it.
Shussebora Scale of the Protector: grants the user the Protection of the Sea ability, which places a protective shield over a single target within 60 feet for 6 seconds, absorbing damage equal to up to 200% of the target’s maximum health but not exceeding 200% of the user’s current health. Damage exceeding the absorbed amount transfers back onto the user after a 3-second delay if the user is within 60 feet of the target. Lockout: 3 minutes. Requires an open Free Slot.
The smooth, blue-green scale had a strange quality to it, a mix of wood, metal and shell that made it seem completely otherworldly. Seiki’s first Free Slot would become available as soon as his experience, now frustratingly close to the next level, finally hit the threshold, and he could not wait to see what the ability would actually do.
Apart from the scrolls, they also received crafting materials of all kinds: fabrics, herbs, and high-quality woodblocks. Two Woodcrafting recipes had also dropped, one for a 48-slot Uchino Storage Box, and one for a Bunraku Hyoshigi, a simple musical instrument consisting of two wood pieces, a [treasure] that could be turned in at the Palace for Favors.
There were also equipment pieces: two daggers, a short wooden staff, and a pair of speed sandals. None of these offered Seiki any upgrades, and he doubted the White Cranes—who were of much higher levels—would have any use for them.
Last, in the front of the pile, was a heavy yellow cloth bag, which held a little more than eleven hundred gold, half of which had once been Fumiya of the Kano Castle’s pocket change.
Seiki grimaced at the memory of fighting the Kano Castle ninja. Even when no one had explicitly said so, he had a feeling there was an understanding among the player base that unless you were looking for a special kind of trouble, you did not go against the most powerful clan outside the East Gate. The last campaign against Kano Castle had ended in total destruction for all their opponents. Renshiro’s original clan, whose name Seiki could never remember, had been forced to dissolve, and the Fuoka Army, that had come to their aid, ended up losing their territory in Fuoka. After what had happened in the Shussebora Cave, Seiki and his friends did not expect to be able to walk away with absolutely no consequences, yet so far no visible threat had materialized.
“Well, let’s hope Kano Castle is as busy with the Festival as everyone else,” Seiki said. “That will give us some time to prepare. Although, to be honest, I’m not sure how exactly we’re going to prepare for that,” he added, knowing they were missing at least ten levels to have a fighting chance.
“Yeah,” Ippei agreed. “Or, better yet, let’s hope that by the end of this week, the Rogami will get so cocky that they decide to invade the Kano Castle. That would keep both of them occupied for a few months.”
“That’s not going to happen, is it?”
“Probably not,” the samurai chuckled. “This Zengoro guy probably isn’t stupid, considering he’s kept a rather low profile all this time and surprised everyone with the Level 30 sprint.”
According to Ippei’s sources, that had caused a bit of an upset in the upper realms of the high-level clan players, and Seiki secretly hoped that whatever went on in that sphere would keep people busy enough to overlook the little loot kerfuffle the night before.
Still, they decided to be safe, and Ippei had shown up earlier with the glass wind chime [toy] for Seiki’s new territory, which he had called a housewarming gift. It was one of the numerous territory upgrade items you could get for your private room, and was supposed to act as a doorbell and alert Seiki to the presence of whoever was trying to get into his territory.
“At least it gives you some warning when you’re about to get murdered right in your own home,” the samurai had said with a wry smile.
Private territories were supposed to be completely safe, but since no one could explain why the Kano Castle ninja had managed to get into Seiki’s personal instance without being in his group, they thought every little bit of warning would help.
Curiously, however, like most toys, the wind chime came with an unexpected glitch and considered post pigeons individual entities. So when a message arrived, a mysterious gust of wind would lift just in time to rattle the tiny bell and announce the bird.
The toy now jingled again as another bird flew in through the open window and dropped itself into Seiki’s hand.
Yamura [Level 17]: (1 minute ago) Never mind. I’m coming. Where’s this place again? Now I’m stuck on the other side of Mani Shrine and the roads are blocked, and the NPCs don’t know where South Funari is.
“South Funari?” Seiki blinked at the mangled territory title.
Every private territory in Shinshioka had an official name, but were often better known by their nicknames based on their most obvious feature: ‘the pawn shop room’ at Central Crossing, or the unimaginative ‘East Gate room’ and ‘West Gate room’ for the two closest to the City’s two main exits. Kentaro’s fancy North City territory was famously known as ‘the koi pond room’, one of the most aesthetically pleasing territories in the city. There was also a ‘Society room’, a rather unassuming second-floor territory in the same building where the Shinshioka Scientific Society had made their headquarters.
Seiki’s newest territory was one of the few that bore no common name. Some called it the ‘Mani Shrine room’, but that often indicated another territory slightly further east on the other side of the shrine, in South City. On the Territory Deed, the room was named ‘Furuhashi South’, and although that particular term did not appear anywhere on the Society’s Updated Map of Shinshioka, NPC guards were usually able to point out the direction for players.
Despite the territory’s virtue of being decently priced and centrally located near the midway point of Trade Street, it required four flights of stairs to reach, and was near nothing of immediate usefulness. Therefore, it was not all that popular, which was probably part of why Seiki had chosen it in the first place.
Looking out the window once more, Seiki scanned the city for a more obvious landmark to add to the instructions.
It was a surprisingly tough pick among the new landmarks that had popped up. The City had been busy with preparations the whole past week, with NPCs hanging up lamps and flags and engaging in little parades, but the scale of the real change once the Festival officially started was beyond anyone’s expectations. Even Ippei admitted it was much more impressive than the one held for the first crafter who reached max level in a Trade Skill.
Every shop now boasted bright, bold signs that advertised special discounts and time-limited items. Several sections of Trade Street had been blocked out as pedestrian zones for specialty stalls. Over-eager NPCs stood at street corners to hand out flyers and shout to potential customers. To add to the sense of realism, perhaps, the streets were annoyingly covered with discarded copies of these, which strangely did not immediately fade like other discarded messages.
Processions came down the streets every hour or so, much more elaborate than before, now featuring decorated floats of bright red lamps and various kami statues. Festival NPCs, either masked or with painted faces, sometimes in the hundreds, danced and clapped, shouting rhythmic ‘oi!’ in unison, filling the air with constant music and drumbeats. And spectators crowded the streets to watch, while the rest of the traffic was diverted down different side streets in Shinshioka’s complicated network of roads.
Guessing that Yamura was probably caught in one of these, Seiki supplied the official territory name of ‘Furuhashi South’ again, and added a note about the entrance being on ‘the lane opposite a big red sign with a fish on it with a huge line of people’.
Seiki had been one of those in the line earlier, and the Giant Taiyaki [Level 3 food] had been completely worth the 85 silver. It also gave him a useless buff that added 3% luck when fishing for two hours.
Ending the note to Yamura with a minor endorsement of the taiyaki, he sen
t out the message. There was no way his friend could miss it now.
Another pigeon arrived just as he sent one off. This time it was from Kentaro.
“Are people going to show up or are we just gonna do post correspondence?” muttered Ippei.
Seiki laughed as he unrolled the houshi’s message. “Well, Kentaro says he doesn’t want anything from the loot pile, so we can go ahead and start once the White Cranes get here. Because, apparently, he’s also doing something very important.”
“Hopefully that something very important is finding a way to use the Society’s unique dagger,” said Ippei.
The mysterious Red Headband Master Pattern recipe was Level 32. Since all Trade Skills went up to a maximum of 30, it meant they would require the use of the unique dagger Needle of the Weaving Princess, which added +2 levels to any Trade Skill.
There was another jingle from the wind chime. This time, a gray pigeon flew straight in past Seiki and landed noisily on the table where Ippei was sitting at. “Finally,” said the samurai. “The West Defenders. Hope they’ve come to their senses about having a kitsune.”
Ippei had been discussing War Games with the West Defenders all afternoon. The clan, like most PVE clans, had not been too thrilled to learn of Seiki’s scuffle with the Rogami out the West Gate and the resulting Out of Line debuff. It would not affect their spectator run at the Ruins of Hitsu Temple scheduled for a few days from now, but it might hurt Ippei’s secret plan to have qualified West Defenders speed them through the remaining instances and catch up with the war front. Umiko of the West Defenders had told them straight up the clan had no interest in getting into clan conflicts of any sort, which Ippei thought was a little funny, considering they had tried to invade the Shinshioka Scientific Society before to steal one of their unique weapons.
“Wait till they hear about Kano Castle, too.” Ippei had somehow found that extremely amusing.
Seiki knew his friend was more concerned than he let on, and they had agreed that simply mentioning strategy for the Ruins of Hitsu Temple was probably not going to be enough to keep the West Defenders convinced. They now needed to demonstrate it, and that itself also relied on the West Defenders being able to pull it off.
As Ippei once again tried to explain the merits of having a kitsune in the group makeup via post, Seiki idly looked out the window. His eyes drifted towards the busy taiyaki stall. “I wonder what’s taking Yamura so—”
His breath caught.
A ghastly white face was staring at him, a spot of eerie stillness in the moving crowd around it.
It was a familiar sight. Its eyes were carved-out hollow slits, its lips slightly parted in a permanent snarl. Long straight black hair reached beyond its shoulders, falling over a long-sleeved blood-red kimono.
Seiki fought down a shiver. It was directly under his window, looking straight up, paying no attention to the other festival-goers that flowed around it. No one paid it any attention either, and at the back of his mind Seiki wondered if he was the only one who could see it.
His eyes still fixed on the figure, he drew a slow, shallow breath. “Uh, no one can see in, right?” he said, more quietly than he intended.
“Into this room?” said Ippei. “No. Unless they’re in your group.”
“Right.” Seiki found little comfort in that answer as he continued to stare.
As if noticing that he had spotted it, the masked figure lifted its arms, raising its long dark red sleeves, looking as if it was preparing to launch straight at the window. Despite being perfectly sure nothing could reach through territory boundaries, Seiki unconsciously let go of the windowsill to put an extra inch between himself and the thing. He winced as the figure sprang up, but then, two feet off the ground, it simply vanished.
The space where the figure had been remained a circle of nothing for a moment, before an unsuspecting player in Shinshioka armor stepped into it and merged it back into the flow of eager crowds. A second later, Seiki found his hand on the hilt of his dagger and forced himself to let go.
Ippei had looked up from his letter. “What is it?”
“I don’t know. I’ve been seeing this face everywhere,” said Seiki as he tried to recall when he had first noticed it. “A mask.”
Ippei put down his brush. “A what?”
Seiki let out a slight laugh at his inexplicable, disproportionate dread. “It’s a real, uh, thing, like, you know, someone with a geisha mask?” He guessed, again secretly chiding himself for the fact that it looked nothing like a geisha.
“Oh, right, you’ve mentioned it before. A player? NPC?”
Seiki sucked on his teeth. “I don’t know. More like… a ghost? It’s never close enough for a label to pop up. And it just stands somewhere and looks at me. And then it disappears.” An idea occurred to him. “Oh, so maybe it’s part of the unlabeled quest chain?” As unconvincing as that was, attributing it to part of game design he did not quite understand made him feel somewhat better.
“No.” Ippei’s expression turned dead serious. “I’m sorry, but that’s just your Ichikeya girlfriend stalking you.”
“In that case, I guess we should invite her up?”
“Definitely. Since you’ve bought enough kakigouri to feed the whole city.” Ippei gestured to the side of the room lined with bowls of shaved ice.
A third of them were cherry-flavored, the rest Seiki had just picked at random, including something called shirokuma—which Mami, the kakigouri shop girl, had said was exclusive to the festival week.
Now that he looked at them again, Seiki had to agree the amount was ridiculous. “Yeah, their flyer got me,” he said with a sigh. It was only after he had made his purchase that he realized the time-limited ice bowls were double the normal price.
“Their gold dump strategy is working,” said Ippei.
“For sure,” said Seiki. Luckily, the desserts only started really melting once someone dug a spoon in, so at least the room was not in imminent danger of overflowing with sticky sugar water.
“So, this masked stalker is out there?” said Ippei, returning to the subject.
“It’s gone now. And I’m very sure I’m not hallucinating. Wait. What if it’s really a ghost? No, not that kind of ghost, but a game ghost?” Seiki rushed to his storage box and crouched down to rummage for an item. “Maybe this thing is cursed.”
The object in his hand—slick, black, unlabeled, which the Society called a Shadow Seal—was disturbingly cold to the touch. Without warning, it suddenly sent an unpleasant shiver down his body, and Seiki grimaced and set it down on the floor.
“It was only after we got it that I started seeing this masked thing. So maybe… maybe it’s related. Maybe it has something to do with a disgruntled spirit and the cursed item attracts it.”
Ippei looked a little doubtful. “So you’re saying there’s now a ghost coming after you?”
Before Seiki could answer, three knocks sounded on the door.
Seiki and Ippei exchanged a quick glance. The timing was a little too perfect, and a second of silence followed, before the samurai shouted, tentatively, “Come in, Fuyu-chan.”
There was another brief moment of stillness.
“Uh, it’s me,” came Yamura’s voice.
Seiki laughed, somehow inexplicably relieved. “You’re on the guest list. The door should open.”
The wooden door rattled. “It won’t open.”
“Uh, it slides?”
“Okay, I know it slides. But, no, that’s not it.”
That was indeed a little surprising. There were two main ways to access another player’s private territory. The first was to be in the same group as the instance owner. The second was to be on the territory’s guest list. Ippei had earlier shown Seiki how to create one, and the list now hung on the wall next to the entrance, with eight names on it.
Seiki glanced at the list again to check if he had somehow misspelled Yamura’s name.
“I’m
sure it’s correct,” he said as he opened the door.
Yamura of the Honor Warriors [Level 17] was, curiously, not in his usual various Shinshioka ryoushi armor set, but in a long gray robe that barely fit him.
“Hey. Yeah, it was just… stuck.” The ryoushi took a step forward, only to frown. “Okay, and now it says I don’t have permission to enter. What the hell?”
Ippei leaned over to look through the doorway. “You can’t be in a group.”
“Group?” Yamura blinked. “Oh, right, okay. Can you invite Shota? No, wait. You’re using a list. Here, I’ll do it.”
Yamura has asked for your permission to add Shota of the Honor Warriors to your temporary territory guest list.
Unlike public territories, private territory guest lists were closed lists, which meant they allowed access to only specified players but did not automatically give them permission to invite other players in. Seiki had once asked his friends why guest lists for clan territories, like the White Crane Hall one Kiku had put him on, did not have the same security measures in place. Ippei’s answer was that clan territories were designed to promote intrigue in the first place, and unsecure public guest lists simply made it easy for anyone to start an invasion.
Seiki poked his head out to look down the short corridor. Yamura’s mystery friend, of course, was nowhere to be seen.
“Oh, Shota’s not here,” said Yamura. “Since it’s a secret meeting and all, so I told him to wait at the temple.”
The explanation shed no light on the matter. “Can’t you just leave the group?” said Seiki.
Ippei leaned over again. “And… who’s Shota, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“My clanmate. He’s cool – an IRL friend, you know. From school,” Yamura added. “And, seriously, I can’t leave the group right now. We were doing a quest and I don’t know if I would lose all my progress.”