by Nikita Thorn
Seiki retrieved the Formal Invitation and handed it over to Kazuki. “I looted this from the Level 4 guy. It was the only thing he had on him.”
The ninja studied the invitation, a frown forming on his face. He then passed it to his two other clan mates who had not seen it, both of whom ended up with the same expression of concern.
Suzuyo shook her head and handed the invitation back to Kazuki. “Today keeps getting weirder and weirder. Now this? I really don’t know what to think. And, okay… the question is, why you, Seiki?”
The girl suddenly turned to look at him as if she could make an answer appear just by staring hard enough.
“I’d also like to know,” said Seiki uneasily. “Since I’m the only one to have seen it before, is it possible that they… uh… somehow used me to get inside?”
Akuma seemed amused. “Did you unknowingly get into a group with a stranger?”
Seiki shook his head.
“Then, no.” Akuma chuckled.
“If it’s anyone’s fault, it was mine,” said Kazuki.
“Yes, inviting the guy in defeats the whole purpose of the lobby, don’t you think?” said Ikumi.
Kazuki grimaced. “Well, considering Kaji is… was one of our trusted freelancers…” He trailed off and drew a deep breath. “All right. I was waiting for Ikumi to come back so I can tell you the whole story. Kaji wrote to me, asking if I recognized the start of a poem.”
Akuma and Suzuyo both gasped.
Seiki glanced at his friends, and was relieved he was not the only one who failed to see what was special about the statement.
“Uh…” Mairin began. “We’re not very well-versed in, uh…”
“Verse,” said Ippei.
Kazuki nodded. “Not many people are, and this is one of the things we have not published. Since you’re somehow involved, let me show you, then.” He got up, went to one of the large chests by the wall and retrieved a rectangular polished wooden box from within.
The smaller container was the size of a thick encyclopedia volume. Unlike most boxes where the lid and the body were two separate pieces, this one had golden hinges and a tiny lock to guard its contents.
Kazuki set the box down on the floor in front of him and reached into his sleeve to produce a sewing needle.
Seiki’s eyes widened as he recognized what it was. “It’s blood-locked.”
“Yes.” The ninja pricked his finger and smeared his drop of blood on the lock, before springing it open with a bright click.
Within was a single item: a book in pristine condition, made with thick cream-colored paper, tidily bound. The dark blue patterned cover bore its title, written in a vertical line of artistic text: A Supreme Collection of Kodai Treasured Poems. The object was similarly labeled, without a crafter’s name, meaning it was not player-made.
Despite not knowing what it meant, the words ‘treasure’ and ‘poems’ in the same sentence was enough to give Seiki a vague idea of its use and value.
“You know there are different kinds of puzzle poems?” said Kazuki.
Seiki did know something about it, and he nodded. “Yeah, there are ones that are sort of out in the open and ones that lead to secret locations in an instance.”
“Yes. The first kind gives you a personal treasure. The game will try to put the puzzle in your way and if you notice it you’ll get the treasure. They’re always a haiku, by the way.”
Seiki actually did not know that.
“The second kind, the kind that are in instances,” Kazuki continued. “You need these books.”
“A collection of poems?” Mairin read from part of the title.
Suzuyo shook her head. “This is pretty much the collection.”
“There are a few copies, well, not exact copies,” said Kazuki. “Some are called Lesser Collection, and contain fewer pages. Ours, I think, is the most complete one. Have you ever wondered how people figure out where they should look if… say, they happen to loot a poem from a rare or buy one from the black market?”
Seiki had always thought it was just luck of stumbling upon something, which was why the solve rate was incredibly low.
“They can consult this book, and if they’re lucky, their poem will be in here somewhere, with some sort of a hint, usually an illustration. For example…”
Kazuki flipped to a random page and turned the book around for his guests to have a look. On it were five lines of text:
The snow-covered peaks
Between crisscrossing bamboo.
Do set high your sight,
But remember to step back
To see the ground underfoot.
On the bottom of the page was a simple illustration: a shrine nestled between two pine trees. Seiki blinked as he recognized where it was. “It’s the way-shrine out in the Wilderness.” He turned to Ippei. “The one you showed me.”
“So there’s a treasure hidden there?” asked Mairin.
“Yes, but only if you find this poem and have it on you when you go look for it.”
Mairin thought for a moment. “Can’t you just bring the whole book?”
Kazuki seemed to find it funny. “It doesn’t work that way, but wouldn’t that be nice? So, like I was saying, if you ever come across this particular poem, you know where to go look for your treasure. Of course, you’ll only have an hour to figure out what this crisscrossing bamboo means, or the poem fades and the treasure disappears.”
“Does this mean there’s a finite number of poems?” Ippei asked in surprise.
“Well, we’re not sure. Let’s say there are poems in here that no one has ever found the piece of puzzle for, and there are puzzles that are not in this book, so my best guess is that the poems and the treasures and poetry collections are still being generated.” Kazuki paused to look at his guests. “Now you might be wondering where I’m going with this, so let me tell you something: there’s a third kind of puzzle poems.”
He flipped the book back to its first page. “Every book has a table of contents page at the beginning that shows the first line of all the poems contained in it, in order.”
The whole table of contents page was filled with tidy rows of text written with a very fine brush. Seiki took a glance at the beginning.
(one) The sun in the east
(two) Four and twenty-three
(three) Time crawls and snow falls
(four) Leaning o’er the stream
They were all numbered, totaling over a hundred.
“Look at number twenty-seven,” said Kazuki.
Seiki located the item on the page where it should be:
(twenty-six) In the long-shade hour
(twenty-seven) Bell of ancient bronze
(twenty-eight) Shapeless is the wind
Still failing to see its significance, he looked up at the ninja.
“Now look for the twenty-seventh poem in the book,” said Kazuki.
At first Seiki thought this was going to be some sort of a puzzle itself, but the task turned out to be straightforward. Each page contained a single poem, the majority of which had an accompanying illustration as a hint. The clues were written on only one side of the paper, making it one sheet per poem, all numbered in order.
Between page twenty-six and twenty-eight, however, was a damaged page. A quarter of it was missing, as if someone had cut out the poem. On the remainder of the page were a few simple swirling lines, which artists liked to use to depict wind. Not sure what it meant, he looked up at the ninja again.
“The third type of puzzle poems,” said Kazuki. “Ones that are missing.”
Seiki could tell he was meant to draw certain conclusions, like how these were the most valuable of them all, but he was still unable to see how they were all connected.
“At first we thought it was the case of some books having some poems and that we need to put them all together, like maybe this particular poem would be available in a different collection, but, no. In e
very book where ‘Bell of ancient bronze’ appears in the table of contents, the poem itself is always cut out of the book. And this isn’t only one. There are many more. We call these the ‘missing poems’.”
“What does it mean?” asked Mairin.
“We don’t know. But maybe we’re about to find out.” Kazuki produced a piece of paper and put it down on the floor in the middle. “From our ex-freelancer.”
The paper was thick, high-quality, cream-colored, with five lines of text:
Bell of ancient bronze
Above the layering green.
Thrice then twice it rings,
So wandering feet may stall,
And woe-laden souls may sleep.
Ikumi stared. “Kaji gave you this?”
Kazuki nodded. “For me to match it with the book, since he knew I wasn’t going to take the book out in his presence. But when I stepped out of the room, I saw the invaders in the corridor. That kept me preoccupied for a bit, then I was dead. All right, mind opening to page twenty-seven again, Seiki?”
Seiki did so, but somehow, even before the ninja straightened the piece of paper in place where it should be, he already knew it was a perfect fit.
Despite its creases from folding, the piece of paper looked as if it had been cut from that very page. The Society members all fell silent.
Seiki suddenly recalled the looter implying something about uniques. If this was the first missing poem ever discovered, he could see how the man could make that guess.
Suzuyo let out a long breath. “Kaji’s whole story about him looting it off a victim for his employer was bunk, wasn’t it? He came to… give us this.”
“Okay, you’re forgiven for the invite,” said Ikumi. “I would have invited him in if he promised to show me something like this.”
“Okay, okay, wait a minute. It makes no sense,” said Mairin. “So they invade your territory, try to take the uniques, fail, and then give you a super rare unique missing puzzle poem and then invite Seiki to their house party?”
No one had any answer to that. Suzuyo looked at him again. “Seriously, Seiki, why you?”
“I really don’t know,” Seiki said helplessly. Somehow, he felt responsible and he reached toward the collection. “May I?”
Kazuki nodded, and Seiki picked up the book and flipped through it, wondering if he was supposed to know something. He found another page with a missing poem on page thirty-nine, with the clue being a large boulder, which looked somewhat familiar, but then again all boulders looked the same and this one did not have a particular shape.
“You said there were more than one of these missing poems?” Mairin asked.
“There are seven in this book,” said Kazuki. “And a few more in the one I’ve seen with the Nobles, with four overlaps.”
Out of curiosity, Seiki flipped to the table of contents to see what the first line of the corresponding page-thirty-nine poem was.
(thirty-nine) Those who come seeking
It did not register immediately. His first impression was that it sounded familiar. After a second, the memory shot through his brain like a bolt of lightning. That was the first line of Kiku’s puzzle poem that had led to the treasure in the Shussebora Cave.
Seiki nearly let out a shout. He remembered in time that Kiku had in fact kept their find a secret from the Society. His mind raced as he glanced up at the group, who seemed to be too engaged in a discussion to notice his private discovery.
The named Trade Skill scroll had been a yield from a missing poem.
Seiki felt dizzy. It still did not explain why they targeted him, and not Kentaro, who had actually learned the named Trade Skill. He also reminded himself that he had started seeing the masked stalker before he even set foot in the Shussebora Cave.
“If we can’t figure out why they’re here, maybe we can try figuring out who they are and what they want?” Ikumi was saying.
Mairin shrugged. “Well, we know for sure they want to party with Seiki. Oh, or here’s a thought. They want Seiki to go look for this ancient bronze bell thing.”
Kazuki thought for a moment. “You have one invitation from me, right, Seiki? Let’s compare.”
“Seiki?” said Mairin.
Seiki jumped as he realized people were talking to him. He hastily closed the book and handed it back to the ninja. “Yeah, uh, I don’t have it on me right now.”
“Use that.” Ikumi pointed to the side of the room, and Seiki now recognized the large enchanted Koumyou Chest set against one wall, which had earlier been in the ground floor lobby.
Glad for a chance to quickly collect his thoughts, Seiki got up and walked over to crouch down by the chest, his mind still trying to put all the pieces together. He could now venture to guess that the Kano Castle had one of these poetry collections in their possession, which would explain why they knew where to look for the treasure. If this was true, it would shed light on a few other things, including, perhaps, the whole business with the White Crane Hall and their switched Trade Skill scroll.
It was too much to think about right now, and Seiki did not trust himself not to let anything slip at the moment, and so he firmly pushed the thought out of his head. He quickly located Kazuki’s Formal Invitation from his inventory in the chest and laid it down side-by-side with the other one.
Formal Invitation Letter [Shinshioka Scientific Society] – [Seiki]: allows access to the clan’s private reception room during the Night of the White Dragon at the end of the Pacchi Festival: Fourth Floor Shobu Reception Room. Crafted by Kazuki of the Shinshioka Scientific Society.
Formal Invitation Letter [ ] – [Seiki]: allows access to the host’s private reception room during the Night of the White Dragon at the end of the Pacchi Festival: Fifth Floor Himawari Reception Room.
Kazuki’s invitation looked a little different from when Seiki last studied it, and he realized the text had updated itself to show information about the reception room, which had not been there before the Festival started.
“No crafter’s name,” Suzuyo noted after a while.
“That should be impossible for anything made with Calligraphy,” said Kazuki. He paused for a moment to study the text. “It’s a personal invitation, not a clan invitation. Here, look, it says ‘host’, right here, not ‘clan’.”
“And they have the top floor room already.” Suzuyo let out a long breath. “We grinded this hard and we’ll probably end up with the Fourth Floor at the most. And that’s for our whole clan. You’re saying this nameless person single-handedly unlocked the Himawari Room?”
Seiki recalled something about upgrading the quality of the Shogun’s Banquet at the end of the Festival, but not enough to decide how worried he should be if his host had single-handedly unlocked the top floor room. “Is that really difficult to get?”
The Society seemed surprised he did not know, but Ikumi was happy to provide a quick rundown on how it worked. Every individual player, regardless of how much they participated in the Festival, was entitled to the instanced ground floor private room during the update. Those who had completed a certain number of Festival Quests would be able to claim an additional room on higher floors, each with better rewards: the Tsubaki Room on the second floor, the Sumire Room on the third floor, the Shobu Room on the fourth floor, and ultimately the Himawari Room on the top floor, which NPC rumors claimed was gilded with gold and came with music and dance performances as well as a multi-course set meal served on pearl-laden trays.
Clans were also entitled to the same rewards, based on how many Clan Festival Quests and Achievements were completed.
“The Himawari Room is supposed to be even grander than the Shogun’s Ceremony for the Rogami tomorrow. But based on how much the NPCs hype it and how impossible it is to do that many things during the Festival, I thought the fifth floor was a myth,” said Suzuyo. “You know, it’s the devs having a laugh.”
“Maybe it’s still a myth,” said Akuma. “Maybe this thing
is fake, and you go to the Fifth Floor and the door won’t open.”
How the Banquet Tower worked was similar to how private territories worked. The building was instanced for each player, and acted as a corridor that could then lead to different instances of the Banquet Rooms. Players could invite other players to their Banquet Room by giving them a Formal Invitation that specified their names, and during the whole event players were free to move between different instances they had been invited to, simply by putting the desired Formal Invitation at the top of their inventory and opening and closing the door on the corresponding floor.
“How can you make a fake anything anyway?” said Suzuyo.
After all, the label clearly had it as a Formal Invitation, and item labels did not lie.
“So… you’re thinking this is an extremely powerful player who grinded out all these achieves and has unlocked the Himawari Room…” said Mairin. “The max level Rogami guy?”
Akuma let out a laugh. “Zengoro? No way.”
Seiki had to agree it did not feel like what the Rogami Clan would do.
“How about Ichikeya?” said Mairin again.
“If Ichikeya could do something like this, they would have done it to everybody already,” said Kazuki with a chuckle. “Sell you the uniques and rob them all back to sell them to you again.”
“Kano Castle?” Seiki could not help it.
Akuma looked at him. “Why Kano Castle?”
“They have a bit of a history,” said Ikumi.
The swordsman frowned. “Well, I can’t imagine Yoshinaga dressing up in a red kimono, although I’d love to see that.”
“The Nobles?” said Ippei.
Akuma grimaced. “The Nobles would want you to bloody know it’s them. They would be distributing flyers all over your corpse that say, ‘This was us. The Nobles own you’.”
“Akuma used to be a Nobles, can you believe it?” Suzuyo whispered to Mairin, loud enough for everyone to overhear.
The swordsman shot her a look, but said nothing to contradict it.
Kazuki sighed. “And now we’ve exhausted the list of everyone who would be remotely capable of pulling off something like this.”