Shadows of the Great Forest (Realm of Arkon, Book 4)

by G. Akella

  Professions in the game were a curious thing. In the real world he'd need no less than half a year to process fifteen tons of ore, but here all you needed was to pour two hundred pounds of ore into the foundry (thankfully, Max wasn't lacking for strength), close the lid, and activate the skill. Three measly minutes later you had your shiny new bars, and the foundry was ready for more, empty and clean as a baby's bottom. It violated every law of physics imaginable, but was anyone truly bothered by it? This was a world of magic, after all, and this particular wonder paled in comparison to what was truly possible.

  Deep in thought, Max didn't notice his blood brother approaching.

  "There you are," a calm, low voiced sounded in his head, like a soft growling. A black panther emerged from behind the trees moments later. "Took a while to find you..." the lord added, changing into elf form on the go.

  "Should be a breeze for you with your sense of smell," said Max, rising from the log and putting away his pipe. "How did the audience go?"

  "The Great Prince wishes to see you at once," Phylatrim's voice was suddenly very serious. "The guards have been notified. Come, I'll take you to the palace."

  "Wait," Max put his hand on the lord's shoulder, holding him back. "Why do you look so grim? Did something happen?"

  "It's... complicated," Phylatrim drew a heavy sigh, gazing into the encroaching wall of milky-white mist. "Irwine was incensed that you spoke with the Great Prince of the Martens. Naturally, I told him that was before you acquired your true form, so you couldn't be considered a full-fledged Nightcrawler when the conversation took place. Even so..."

  "Why does that even matter? If I were in his shoes, I'd be willing to ally with the demons threatening his borders if it saved my people from ruin."

  "Except you're not in his shoes, brother," the lord said bitterly. "Try to understand Irwine's position. He'd lost his grandfather and his beloved in the Kaerinean Carnage. His father Kohegrym then killed the Great Prince Dylaernus, but paid for his revenge with his own life. There's no love lost between our prince and our cousins, whether light or dark."

  "How many millennia ago was that?! Show me more than a dozen people on either side who have lived through it! Even the king responsible for all that mess is dead."

  "Nakilon... Aye, he is dead. They say he was killed by the Two-Faced Goddess, but those are just legends. No witnesses of his death remain."

  "So what?! Are you telling me that the whole Great Forest is doomed to destruction because of this feud, which is as old as the shit of a woolly mammoth?!"

  "Come, Gray One," shifting into cat form, Phylatrim faced the direction of the city. "I was ordered to deliver you there, the rest is up to you. You needn't worry about anything personally—messengers are untouchable by our customs."

  "Good to know," Max grumbled, shifting as well. Then, with a farewell gaze at the mist-cloaked river, he followed after his blood brother.

  The prince's palace stood in an enormous park. So striking was its splendor that Max found himself marveling at the beauty around him despite his considerable anxiety. The finely-framed fountains ejected columns of water toward the sky, strong as geysers, while sparkling with every imaginable color in the magic lamplight. The hedges lining the alleys paved with white stone were cut in the shapes of exotic animals. The white marble of sculptures and decorative vases reflected off the dark surface of small ponds scattered throughout the park as wisps hovered in the air like fireflies, glowing with every color of the rainbow. Taken together, the ambiance was truly spellbinding. Max caught himself thinking that, unlike the other elves, Nightcrawlers seemed to have a normal attitude toward things made of metal, glass and stone. Then again, so far that only applied to sculptures and tableware.

  The commander of the guard met them at the main palace entrance, then escorted Max to the Great Prince's reception and handed him off to the ruler's secretary. A pretty level 13 elven female, she sized Max down with a cold, evaluating gaze, then gestured at the tall ornate doors to her right.

  Itching to give her a taste of her own medicine, Max replied with an evaluating gaze of his own, channeling the lascivious construction worker stereotype as best he could. Then he turned and pulled the doorknob, chuckling with satisfaction at the spiteful scoffing behind him.

  Irwine's office was virtually indistinguishable from the office of the Great Prince of the Martens: a work desk, a bookcase, a couch, and several chairs. One of these things is not like the others, thought Max upon noticing the scowling muzzles of strange beasts hanging on the walls amidst miscellaneous artwork. There were seven in all. Hunting trophies? Their size suggested each head once belonged to a raid boss. Coming away impressed, Max shifted his gaze at the host.

  Great Prince Irwine, a towering shifter with ash-gray hair, stood in the middle of the office, hands folded over his chest, his countenance dark.

  "Well met, Great Prince!" the warrior bowed his head deferentially.

  It wasn't that he was especially awestruck, but better err on the side of etiquette, no?

  "The missive!" ignoring the greeting, the prince held out his right hand demandingly.

  Shrugging nonchalantly, Max handed him the leather scroll with a green seal. The prince passed a careless left hand over the scroll, sniffed with disappointment, then broke the seal and set to reading.

  Did he expect a trick or something? Max thought. Perhaps these great princes were known to prank one another on the regular basis, and his mistrust was entirely justified? But what could you slip into a letter, anyway? A hex? Anthrax? A nuclear bomb? Would a nuclear bomb even be enough to take down a level 600 NPC with three billion hit points?!

  "I should have you executed for colluding with our enemies, ryhn. The fact that you became one of us only recently is no excuse," the prince spat through clenched teeth, ripping the letter to tiny little pieces. "When you agreed to meet with Goherym, you knew full well of the enmity between our High Houses. But you are a messenger under our laws, and as such you mustn't come to harm. Aside from that, I'd rather not mess with those who have left their marks on you. But know this! I have no intention of making any arrangements—neither with dark nor light elves. They are our enemies, and they shall remain our enemies till the end of time!"

  Your reputation has decreased! Irwine, the Great Prince of the High House of Nightcrawlers, is unfriendly to you.

  "Tell me, Great Prince, do the Ancients know of your distaste for elves?" Max inquired, watching the torn bits of the letter being consumed by the magic flames. He realized that silence would be far more prudent a tactic, but he couldn't help himself, consumed by righteous indignation toward this so-called ruler who would put his own ego above the lives of his subjects! "I'll tell you—the Ancients don't give a rat's ass about your politics! They are coming, Great Prince, make no mistake about it. And I promise you, nothing will remain of your House or of the thousand-year-old feud you can't seem to get over."

  "You forget yourself, ryhn," the prince snarled. "Who are you to pass judgment over events that took place before you were even born? What do you know of what happened in the shade of these very trees almost three thousand years ago?! Were you there when we lost four fighters out of five in the Kaerinean Carnage, then retreated into the Wild Wood as we prepared to make our last stand?! Or when those Cloverleaf bastards ransacked our villages, sparing not even children or the elderly? Did you watch your wife die in your hands?! The Martens?! The Morning Dew?! They may not have taken part in the atrocities, but they stood by and did nothing but agree with Nakilon like lapdogs, then butcher one another in the War of the Great Rift! And you expect me to ally with them?!" The prince gestured at the door. "You have two weeks to leave the territory of the Wild Wood, ryhn. That is the period granted to all messengers. Fail to do this, and you shall envy the victims of that bastard Vill!"

  Attention! You have been branded with the Mark of Exile. You have two weeks to leave the Wild Wood. Failing to leave the Wild Wood within the allotted time or returning to its
territory will cause your reputation with the High House of Nightcrawlers to fall to hostile and a bounty to be placed on your head, with your location being visible to all members of the High House of Nightcrawlers.

  "I wish I knew what our Father and Forefather saw that merited leaving their mark on you," Irwine scoffed with disdain.

  "Could it be that I care more about your House than you do?" Max smirked brazenly in his face.

  A bold move, to be sure. Foolish, even. But Max just couldn't stand by and silently watch this highborn imbecile sign his people's death warrant. And besides, no way Irwine would dare mess with the gods. He was too much of a chickenshit.

  "Begone!" the prince roared, but Max was just getting started.

  "Or could this be the reason?" whipping out Cenatodone's enormous head with a purely boyish gesture, he set it down next to him and smacked the monster on its scorched forehead. "Thanks for your hospitality, Great Prince! By banishing me you're saving my life, though soon all the Nightcrawlers will envy Vill's victims!"

  The warrior spun on his heels and started toward the door.

  "Go, Gray One..." Irwine said after him in a strange, changed tone. "There is no place for you in the Wild Wood. There is too much you cannot know..."

  Your reputation has increased! Irwine, the Great Prince of the High House of Nightcrawlers, is neutral to you.

  Once out of the office, Max nodded to the commander of the guard waiting for him, winked farewell to the secretary behind her desk, and headed for the exit.

  The hell just happened! he thought with annoyance, staring into the back of the werepanther walking in front of him. Everything had been going so well, and then bam—he's an exile! He had allowed himself to relax and feel at home, and this was the result... Of course, who could have predicted that the head of a High House would turn out to be such a cretin despite several thousand years of life experience? And if he wasn't a cretin, why put on the show? Wait... If the prince was so goddamned principled, why had he read the missive in the first place? And those last words of his... It left an impression that, for reasons only he knew, the prince had to drive the Gray One out of the Wild Wood. But why? Either he was a threat to the forest, or... I'm thinking crazy thoughts, Max admonished himself. Me? A threat to the Great Forest? Ha! I let all those legends go to my head. But if the first explanation didn't cut the mustard, what then? Was it an indirect and less-than-tactful command to seek out Kirana's shrine? According to legend, she had been head over ears in all this elven infighting. And if the Two-Faced Goddess strengthened her position, the Great Forest did by default. Interesting... And then there was the strange Mysteries of History quest, which had to be related somehow, if only territorially. So, if there were no leads on the temple, tomorrow he would pay a visit to Redcliff the Whisperer or whatever his name was... And then start devising a plan how to sneak a raid of fifty elves past the demon blockade on the border.

  The demons... Maybe Phylatrim would have some ideas? If not, they would have no other option but to journey over two hundred miles south to the Great Ocean and sail around the Netherworld's armies guarding the borders.

  Back when Max had asked Donut the reasonable question as to the numbers of demons required to block the border spanning thousands of miles, his answer was: not as many as one might think. According to Teetotaler, when a raid he was with was traveling to their abandoned castle in Borderlands, they traversed nearly a hundred miles into Darkaan without encountering anyone. And then, all of a sudden red-skinned monstrosities in level 300 range started pouring out of portals, led by five raid bosses. Quickly surrounding the raid, the enemy host proceeded to decimate the player army numbering close to three hundred fifty in the span of thirty minutes. According to the Night Blades, the majority of the demons appeared to be humanoid: two arms, two legs, one rear end. Moreover, some of the demonesses had a particularly tantalizing look to them, and were Teetotaler a few years younger... Of course, Vagabond didn't give up—that just wasn't his style. Half a century of stealthed rogues moved out to his Dewdrop via different routes while the rest of the clan attempted to circumvent the barrier by river. But it was futile. None of the rogues made it through, and the others were in for a different kind of surprise: apparently, RP-17 had populated the river with some new species of amphibian monsters. Bloody sage he was, no doubt about it... And when another mixed raid from Asia made their attempt, they didn't fare much better.

  The element of fire was by far the most common among demon mages. You would think that all you needed was to raise your fire resistance to at least ninety percent and the battle would be smooth sailing, but you would be dead wrong! Indeed, when a raid party led by Jin Ho—the Azure Dragons' most exalted raid leader—encountered the enemy, instead of an uncoordinated swarm of brainless mobs they were facing a combat-ready host of level 300+ NPCs. Even putting aside the level difference, the players' builds were designed for completing raid instances, and so they were soundly defeated by the NPC army fighting as a united front. It appeared that the realm was entering into an era of regular armies, while the players were still expected to play the role of adventurers. Sure, there were bound to be exceptions—gold was as strong an incentive in this realm as on the outside. But the success stories would likely be few and far between.

  The prospects for the player base were looking grim indeed... Though, on the other hand, there was immortality. And immortality could go a long way toward correcting any shortcomings.

  What if they were to circumvent the demon blockade by ocean? The solution seemed so obvious at first, but there was one big problem: the section of the Great Forest bordering the Great Ocean was the Wild Wood, which was inaccessible to players for the time being. Further down the southwest coastline of Karn, access to the ocean by land was blocked by an unbroken wall of Kraet Peaks—the only way across would have to be by air. The closest path to the coast ran through dwarven lands, and the dwarves, on account of their well-known disdain for water, didn't build shipyards at all. And it wasn't until Erantia, which conjoined with the ocean in the western and northwestern sections of Karn, where you could hope to build a proper ship. Even assuming they would make it there and raise the required resources in time, which hardly seemed realistic to begin with, traversing thousands of miles by ocean came with its own set of complications. So, no, the obvious solution wasn't quite so obvious, after all. Still, it might be worth running some calculations to see just how probable or improbable it was, especially if Phylatrim didn't have any better ideas.

  "Ryhn! Stop!" A short young elf caught up to Max at the exit from the prince's palace. "His Highness bid me to give you this," the kid handed over a leather satchel with five thousand fifty gold coins.

  Was he supposed to refuse? Fat chance! Max had his principles, no doubt about it, but this kind of righteousness would make him look a total fool in the prince's eyes. And besides, in his situation five thousand gold would definitely be put to good use.

  "Please relay my utmost gratitude to His Highness," Max replied, accepting the satchel.

  You've completed the quest: Peacemaker.

  You received 50 gold.

  Your reputation has increased. The High House of Marten relates to you with respect.

  Your reputation has increased. The High House of Morning Dew relates to you with respect.

  Ah, so the five grand is for Cenatodone's head. Another trophy to decorate Irwine's office wall, Max grunted to himself, said his goodbyes to the commander of the guard, and walked out of the palace, looking around for Phylatrim.

  He didn't need to look long—the lord was sitting on a bench by the fountain some two hundred yards from the palace's main entrance.

  "Well, how did it go?" he asked as Max approached, slipping a pipe between his teeth and reaching for a tinderbox.

  "I was exiled," the warrior replied after exhaling the smoke.

  "You don't look much like a woebegone exile," Phylatrim shook his head skeptically.

  "It's all about the
nuance," Max said pointedly. "Come, blood brother, I'll explain on the way."

  Chapter 13

  The three-story manor stood on a clearing amid mighty oaks and lindens. Max had been directed to this narrow winding path by the residents of a small village he'd passed not half an hour back, and it had led him to the abode of the Nightcrawlers' master mentor.

  The morning prior, Max breakfasted with everyone upon waking up, said his goodbyes to Phylatrim, and headed south to see Redcliff the Whisperer. Phylatrim was unable to come along, citing urgent business in Syruan before hastening to leave via a portal. His blood brother didn't seem particularly distraught by Max's exile, reacting to it as a self-evident truth, a natural travail for the Gray One of legend to overcome. A state of exile was a fickle thing—enforced today, but easily lifted tomorrow. There was little certainty as to what might happen to the forest after the impending war, so the only thing that truly troubled Phylatrim was that Luffy obviously wouldn't abandon Max, which meant that Tasha, sure to stand by her husband, would be in danger as well. No, it wasn't that he worried needlessly for his daughter, but Lady Isida was certain to chew his ear off upon hearing the news. And the lord would rather face off with a rabid bear in his den than take on his spouse at the dinner table.