by Nikita Thorn
Ippei looked at him. “Don’t tell me you’re actually doing a festival quest.”
“Why else would I be wearing this stupid monk robe? Man, it’s so stupid how you have to put it on to go into the temple in the Palace to turn in this quest or they kick you out. Now they want me to sweep the temple grounds to prepare for some stupid Rogami ceremony.”
“Rogami ceremony?” said Seiki.
The ryoushi grimaced. “I know, I know. But, come on, it’s not like the Rogami is actually getting anything from the quests. Isn’t it just like some sort of a skin?”
Ippei had indeed said that the clan only benefited from short-term boosts, and the rest of it, including the ubiquitous flags and NPCs swooning over the Rogami Clan, was simply cosmetic.
Seiki had been wondering if he was missing out on the festival experience by not actively taking up quests, but then again the idea of sweeping temple grounds for a Rogami ceremony did not sound like something he would ever want to do.
Yamura shrugged. “Plus, you get Festival Tokens. I’ve got, like, ten now. The Youkou quiver is kinda badass, you know.”
Ippei laughed. “Only a hundred and ninety more Tokens. Good luck.”
“Yeah, and six days to go.” The ryoushi was perfectly serious. “So if I get thirty a day, I’ll make it in time.”
If Seiki remembered correctly from the Full Guide to the Festival he had bought earlier from the Society, the Youkou set was a set of gear you could collect during the Festival week. It was available across all classes, and every piece had the same stats as the equivalent standard Shinshioka first-issue weapon. For samurai and ronin, there was the Youkou Sword, which was exactly the same as the Hikari, but which glowed golden instead of white. There was also the Youkou Dagger, priced at 90 Tokens, which Seiki was somehow casually considering. The stats were not better than his Kohagane at the present, but Youkou equipment scaled with player level, and so it might come in handy in the near future.
Yamura shrugged. “Or even if I don’t make it, I can do that feast thing at the end. Okay, come on, Seiki. Let’s get this loot split over with so I can go finish this quest and get a few more Tokens.”
Ippei shook his head in amusement. “Just leave the group, Yamura. I’m sure you can catch up later with the quest.”
“Leaving group would be even more suspicious. I already told him we got some awesome loot from a secret boss, and it would look dubious if I suddenly left the group.” He paused as he saw Ippei lifting an eyebrow. “Okay, I know. But he saw my XP jump, and I couldn’t have lied to him and said nothing happened, all right? And I only told him there was a secret boss that we found, and then, well, the Kano Castle was trying to steal our loot, but we totally kicked his ass, and then there was this treasure scroll…” He trailed off. “But I didn’t tell him what the treasure scroll was.”
Ippei let out a muffled sigh, then his expression turned grim. “You know, Yamura, there was a rumor since Beta that if a part of the world is about to crash from overload, a world boss appears. It’s a thing of fire and darkness that one-shots everyone and sends you to a random spirit shrine anywhere in the world. It has happened only once, early in Beta, and no one was sure how it got triggered, but the leading theory is that it’s to ease the processing load from having too many players in one place.”
Yamura frowned. “Um… okay?”
Ippei continued. “Tomorrow we’ll get to prove the theory, when ten thousand Honor Warriors swarm the Renkan mountain to look for this secret treasure cave. Maybe that will be your great contribution to the Shinshioka Scientific Society.”
Seiki hid a smile. “I don’t think ten thousand’s enough. We should also put up a group recruitment sign in front of the Palace.”
Yamura’s eyes widened. “Okay, Shota’s really cool and this is definitely not getting out,” he protested. “And it’s not ten thousand. We only have about three—”
Laughing, Seiki accepted the pending prompt.
You have added Shota of the Honor Warriors to your temporary territory guest list.
Yamura blinked. “Oh, thanks.”
Seiki made way for the ryoushi. On the guest list by the door, the additional name slowly faded in. The lack of realism was a little surprising, but at least it was more convenient than having to find a brush and ink to write down Shota’s name.
Ippei groaned. “Seiki, one day I swear you’re going to let the Kano Castle in yourself just because they got themselves on Yamura’s friend list.”
“Hey, I know Shota IRL,” said the ryoushi as he sat down beside the loot pile. “And I’m not going to be friends with some stupid Kano Castle.”
“I guess if someone’s checking loot logs, they’re probably gonna know anyway,” Seiki told Ippei as he closed the door. “I don’t think the game is designed for people to keep things secret. I mean, with public logs and everything.”
The samurai let out a sigh. “This time, I actually asked my friend to wipe our logs as a precaution. I wiped your Shussebora Scale piece and Kentaro’s Tailoring Scroll.”
The comment took Seiki by surprise. He had heard it took quite a few Favors to do something of that sort, and he never thought they would ever have the need to. “Why? Fumiya already knows who we are, and there’s no way to wipe personal kill logs.” It had happened out the West Gate, where all combat activities were recorded in public military logs. He was sure Ippei knew that.
“It’s not the Kano Castle I’m worried about,” the samurai said. “I wanted everything else wiped, too, but then it would have cost me a kidney. But at least the rest is generic enough to have been from a good war event.”
“If you call this generic, then generic is good enough for me.” Yamura was looking through the loot. “Especially this one—”
Something slammed heavily against the door, sending vibrations across the tatami floor, just as the wind chime clinked again.
Following a small grunt, the door slid open, revealing a slightly dazed Mairin [Level 15]. The kitsune looked thoughtful as she rubbed her elbow. “I thought that being on the guest list meant my Dash would work coming through the door.”
“It slides,” said Yamura.
“Yeah, of course, it slides. No. I’m testing to see how you can break into someone else’s instance,” said the kitsune, before a bright smile lit up her face. “I just switched out my Enhance and now my Dash goes through more walls. It actually went through the Social Guild’s Spirit-Sealed Panel earlier.”
Seiki was not sure what exactly that meant. Several classes had abilities that allowed them to go through different types of barriers. The kitsune Dash and the obake Fade usually allowed you to pass through any kind of wall a Focused Strike could break, so he guessed this Enhancement she was talking about was to power up that particular utility.
“That’s different,” Ippei said. “Sealed panels are for defense in clan territory PVP. Territory boundaries are unbreachable, because, well, they’re not exactly a physical thing.”
Mairin nodded. “But the Kano ninja breached our instance last night.”
“I’m sure it has something to do with the duplicate treasure poem that he had on him,” said Seiki. It was still the best theory he and Ippei had at the moment, after much discussion earlier that afternoon.
“It was definitely a hack,” said Yamura, who was now admiring the ryoushi Enhancement Scroll that promised him something he had called ghost arrows on his Rapid Shots. “I know. It’s some rich people item-duplicating hack, like a duplicate key.”
“For all we know, that might be intentional,” said Ippei. “Maybe there are duplicate treasure poems, and they all give access to the same instance. Not that I’ve ever heard of such a thing, but maybe that’s how they designed it, to encourage even more PVP. But since the drop rate of the poems is so low and the solve rate even lower, the chance of you ever going into the same instance at the same time as another person is so low that it basically never happens.” He
shrugged. “And maybe Kano Castle figured that out and took advantage of it.”
“Yeah,” said Seiki. “It would explain the whole thing with Renshiro’s Outlaws, too. They just get these poems into people’s hands and they walk in to steal the loot once the instance is cleared.”
“But the paper behaved exactly like Kiku’s treasure poem,” said Mairin. “There was definitely some freaky quantum physics stuff going on, remember?”
Seiki could not argue with that. Both copies of the treasure poem looked identical, and faded exactly at the same time. Also, when Mairin had torn off the corner of one, a tear had also appeared on the other one.
“Think about it,” said the kitsune. “How would that make sense, lore-wise? Why would there be two items in spooky entanglement in ancient Japan? It was definitely fishy on a meta level.”
“It was a hack,” Yamura insisted.
“If anyone knows, besides Kano Castle, it would be the Society, right?” said Seiki.
Ippei looked doubtful. “Now you’ll also have the Society crawling over the Renkan mountain, looking for this dragon cave of yours.”
Mairin blinked. “What do you mean by ‘also’?”
Ippei chuckled. “Ask Yamura.”
“Why, Yamura… and…” The kitsune blinked as she just noticed the extra name on the territory list. “Uh, who is Shota?”
“My friend,” said Yamura.
“And why was your friend invited?”
“He’s not,” explained Seiki. “I added him so Yamura could come in.”
“We were in the middle of a quest,” explained Yamura. “I couldn’t leave group.”
“We’re trying to summon a world boss,” explained Ippei. “Tomorrow. Out the West Gate.”
Yamura shot him a glare, while the kitsune girl looked absolutely confused for a moment.
Shaking her head, Mairin decided to give up on getting to the bottom of the matter. “Anyway, Koharu can’t come, since she’s got something to do with her Kato Club, and she says she wants one of the obake scrolls if possible. And, oh, here, Seiki.” She retrieved a box wrapped in green cloth from her inventory and held it out to him. “Kiku said to give this to you.”
The container was about the size of a holiday chocolate box, wrapped in fine green cloth, and was surprisingly light. Seiki resisted the urge to shake it, in case it was full of delicate food items.
You have received: Hand-Wrapped Parcel [container]. Open to see what’s inside!
“From the White Cranes,” Mairin explained.
“And are they gonna show up?” Ippei checked his golden watch. “They’re ten minutes late already.”
“Kiku said the clan has decided to do some clan quests for the festival,” the kitsune said. “Something about Shogun contributions, not sure what that means. You know, we’re, like, the only ones not doing Festival things. Although I already did one where you swap around the boxes. That was kinda fun.”
“See?” Yamura turned to Ippei.
“See what?” asked Mairin.
Ippei apparently decided to move on. “So the White Cranes want to postpone the meeting?”
Mairin nodded toward the parcel in Seiki’s hand. “Kiku said the box would explain everything.”
“Hope this isn’t some RP crap they do,” said Yamura. “If they wanted to do it later, they could have written way before this and I would have finished the temple quest by now.”
Seiki crouched down and set the box down on the floor. It was delicately wrapped, and the graceful knots came off easily. The box itself was a simple polished black wood box. Seiki lifted the lid. On top of a silky red cloth was a folded piece of fine Calligraphy paper. It was labeled Handwritten Letter. Crafted by Sayahime of the White Crane Order.
The letter contained more text than he had expected, and neat rows of characters filled almost the entire piece of paper. His friends were looking at him expectantly, and so Seiki read it aloud.
Seiki-san,
I, on behalf of the White Crane Order, officially express our intention to forfeit the rights to any of the treasures from last night’s encounter. It is part of the clan’s code of conduct that any member whose actions result in a positive outcome of an event that is otherwise lost is entitled to all rewards from said event, despite prior agreements. We have always considered you as part of our clan and have recorded your contributions in preserving our clan’s honor against ill-meaning parties, which will be counted toward your promotion merits, should you ever decide to make that relationship official. We wish you a pleasant week during the Festival, and let us know if you wish to join us for any of our clan activities. Kiku can provide you the full schedule.
Seiki looked up in disbelief at the end of the very verbose paragraph. “Does it mean what I think it means?”
Ippei let out an amused breath. “Yes. It means we are still interested in recruiting you, and so here are some more bribes. Not that I’m complaining, of course.”
“Me neither,” said Yamura. “Now that’s what I call reasonable. I take it this is mine, right?” He was already pocketing the ryoushi Enhancement Scroll. “And we should just split the gold five ways.”
“Okay, wait a minute,” said Mairin. “I still think we should give Kiku one of the obake scrolls. I’ll let Koharu choose which one she wants.”
“They’ve already said they don’t want it, we don’t want to offend their, uh, RP etiquette,” said Yamura. “And, look, we can sell these for at least a hundred gold each.”
Ippei scratched his chin in contemplation. “You know, if you think about it another way, by forfeiting the loot, the White Cranes keep their hands somewhat clean in the Kano Castle kill.” The samurai gestured towards the thousand gold they had gotten from Fumiya.
“What do you mean?” said Seiki.
“What if the Kano Castle sends them a message and asks for it back?” said Ippei seriously, before adding. “Politely. Say, something like, it has come to our attention that you possess a part of our funds that has been accidentally misplaced.”
“What?” said Yamura. “Why the hell would they do that? That would be totally lame.”
Ippei smiled. “Don’t you know bullies always ask politely for your lunch money first? Then it’s your fault for saying no.”
“Oh,” said Seiki. “It gives them a reason to start a clan war.”
“But the spoils are rightfully ours,” cried Yamura. “They tried to kill us first.”
“Well, your lunch money is also rightfully yours,” said Ippei, before concluding. “So, by not having any part in the loot share, the White Cranes are sending Kano Castle a message that they don’t want a fight.”
Mairin wrinkled her nose. “Oh, come on, they’re just generous. Kiku said it was Seiki’s instance after all, and she wouldn’t have found the treasure if it hadn’t been for us. Plus, Kentaro’s gonna make them magical red headbands or something once he figures out how to do that. And not to mention that this isn’t international politics. You want to start a siege, you just schedule a clan event for it. No need to have reasons.”
“To some people, politics itself is the game, unfortunately,” said Ippei.
“Okay, wait. There’s more.” Seiki interrupted the debate and continued to read.
We have not made sufficient amendment to what happened during the misunderstanding the last time we had the honor of having you as guest in our clan hall. To express the depth of our regret, we have enclosed these gifts.
“Gifts?” said Seiki in surprise, before discovering the piece of fine red silky cloth that he thought lined the bottom of the box in fact hid another layer of items.
Lifting the silk separator, he revealed three identical small envelopes made of oil parchment, neatly laid out to slightly overlap one another in a fan shape. A notification flashed as soon as his finger touched them.
You have received: Auspicious Sealed Card [x3]
Seiki had seen enough War Cards to
recognize what they were. He turned to Ippei. “I didn’t know War Cards were tradable.”
To his surprise, Ippei was staring at the items. “They’re not,” the samurai finally managed, hoarsely, before letting out a deep exhale. “Oh, God.” He shook his head. “This is insane.”
“What’s the big deal?” Mairin grabbed one of the cards to study, flipping it around in her hand. “Don’t you get these cards all the time from your war runs?”
“Are these guaranteed Jades?” Seiki guessed. A guaranteed full upgrade sounded amazing, but still he had a feeling that three extra Jade Cards would not have caused his friend to look as if he was going to faint.
“No,” said Ippei. “They’re exactly the same as the normal Sealed Cards you get.”
“So, yeah, what’s the big deal?” asked Yamura.
“The Shogun’s insignia right there,” Ippei said, pointing to the bottom edge where a five-petaled yellow flower symbol appeared to be stamped. “That’s the only difference.” He looked at Seiki. “These were Beta gifts.”
It took Seiki a moment to understand his friend’s meaning. Beta gifts were special limited-edition items given to Beta players at the end of the test as an incentive to get them to sign up for the official launch of the game. Since it had been a long time since then, most of the cards would have been torn open and used by the time players unlocked War Games, meaning that at this stage it was unlikely that there were still a lot of these cards lying around unopened.
Seiki finally understood. “They’re worth more sealed.” The value of the Cards did not lie in the items themselves, but their rarity.
Ippei nodded.
“There were different reward packages you could choose from,” said the samurai. “And some of the lower tiers included one of these. One. So it’s not like you could get a bunch of them at once.”
“Told you they’re generous,” said Mairin.
“It’s a… gesture,” said Ippei.
Yamura frowned. “Of what?”
As if answering his question, the tiny metal clapper clinked against the glass bowl as the wind chime alerted them to another message, and another pigeon flew in, this time for Seiki.