by Seth Ring
As they traveled, Thorn ran next to Akira who had assumed her battle form. The two girls sat on Akira’s back as they sped along, chatting quietly. Akira’s new race seemed to have granted her the same boundless energy that Thorn possessed, so they raced on without stopping, cutting the four day trip down to less than two.
When the massive Moon Wolf Citadel came into sight, the girls got down and Akira shifted back into her pet form, climbing up on Thorn’s shoulder. Together they walked up to the bustling gate where Captain Del’har met them. Before Thorn could stop him, Captain Del’har hammered his chest in a warrior’s salute that was echoed by the guards at the gate.
“Welcome home, Earl Greymane!”
The ringing sound of metal as all of the Wolfkin guards’ fists hit their chest plates echoed through the pass, causing the players and natives who were queuing to enter the citadel to look over. Whispers broke out as they caught sight of the captain kneeling to greet Thorn.
“Thanks.” Hiding his grimace, Thorn hurried to pull the captain back to his feet. “No need to make a scene here, let’s talk in the fortress.”
“Yes, my lord.”
Gesturing for a squad of soldiers to gather quickly, Captain Del’har commanded them to move ahead, clearing a path for Thorn and his companions as they hurried into the fortress.
“How are things going?”
Based on the number of people that Thorn saw walking around the fortress, it seemed that the citadel was thriving. In fact, Thorn had a nagging feeling that it had been expanded again to deal with the influx of players. There were significantly more Wolfkin guards than he remembered, and many of them wore armor and carried spears rather than the staff common to the disciples of the Temple of the Moon. Noticing his gaze, the captain smiled proudly.
“My lord, everything is going smoothly. There has been a slight complication with the giant wolves, but we have blocked off that area of the valley and we are managing. Otherwise, we are growing nicely. The army is developing well, and many of the Wolfkin from the valley have opted to join the army rather than joining the Temple of the Moon.”
“Oh? Are we making a distinction between them?”
“For the specific details you will need to ask Elder Havva, my lord. He and Lord Corvo had a long talk that I did not really understand. After that, the Wolfkin travelers were moved into the Temple and the native Wolfkin were encouraged to join the military.”
“Got it. I’ll ask Corvo when I see him. Have we had any more troublemakers?”
“No, my lord, the merchants have largely kept in line. Of course there are a few thief groups that have been trying to weasel their way into the Citadel, but Lord Oberlin has established a small force to sniff them out. Though they are not quite as good without him around, they are still managing. Actually, Lady Silverhand has been a large help in that regard.”
“Jora Silverhand? That merchant? Haha, really? Interesting.”
As they climbed the stairs to the fortress’ throne room, Mina took Heidi away to rest. Though they had ridden Akira for the entire trip from the capital, they were both mentally exhausted. Thorn sent Akira to be with her family as well and she quickly disappeared into the valley’s forests. Following the captain, Thorn entered the throne room and waved to Corvo who was talking to two small figures.
Recognizing Jora Silverhand and Peregrine, the Avatar of Tyra, Thorn nodded to them and climbed up to his throne, settling into it with a sigh. Despite the fact that he felt no real physical discomfort after running for two days straight, the shadow of fatigue was clinging to him, and sitting gave him mental relief.
“My lord,” Jora Silverhand bowed her head slightly, her hand across her chest.
From the careful way she held herself and the slight tremor in her voice, Thorn could tell that the Dwarf was extremely nervous. He could not really blame her either. The last time they had interacted he had thrown her in jail. So far, since being released she had only dealt with Corvo and the others.
“Jora, I’ve been hearing great things about your work with Silver Moon. According to all reports you have been doing a stellar job with our merchant arm. Thank you for your efforts in this regard.” Thorn tried to keep his voice as relaxed as possible to take away the tension he could feel between them. He was gratified to see the nervous energy drain out of her stance as Jora listened to his words.
“Thank you, Earl Greymane. I look forward to continuing to build the Silver Moon Merchants and increasing our reach.”
Pleased with Thorn’s attitude toward her, Jora stepped back. Her initial worries that Thorn would still hold her previous actions against her had turned out to be unfounded, giving her even more confidence in Nova Luna. When she had been offered the chance to help run the guild’s merchant arm she had hesitated because she was worried that her past actions would haunt her. Eventually the idea of getting to build a merchant group with nearly unlimited backing had proven too tempting and she had joined up. Now, with just a few words, Thorn had laid her final worries to rest.
Ignoring the glare he was getting from Corvo, Thorn smiled at Peregrine.
“Hello, Peregrine. Please thank Roko for us, her help in contacting the Emperor of the Sky was incredibly helpful. From now on you are more than welcome to hunt in my lands as much as you want.”
“Thanks. Roko will be happy to hear that.”
“Have you given any more thought to joining up with us? With you, me, and Corvo we’ll have a really strong force.”
It took a moment for Peregrine to respond and Thorn could tell that she had been giving the matter considerable thought. Her companion, Roko, loved the tall mountains nearby and there was plenty to do in the mountains that surrounded the valley. Eventually, however, her love of freedom won out and she shook her head.
“No, I think I do better on my own.”
“Well, if you decide you want to join us you are always more than welcome. I’ll send you an invite just in case. Someday if you are interested you can just join.”
“Ahem.”
Corvo’s glare was getting frostier by the second so Thorn quickly ended his conversation with Peregrine and turned to Huginn’s avatar.
“Alright, I can see you’re about to explode, why don’t you fill me in on what I missed?”
“Nice to see you, Thorn. Or should I call you Earl Greymane?” Corvo’s words were slightly bitter as he stared at the Titan. “I see you have profited from galavanting all over the continent. While you’ve been doing that I’ve been stuck here dealing with a million tiny and super annoying details.”
“Hello, Corvo.” Thorn could not keep the smile off of his face as he looked at the avatar of Huginn. “You’ve been doing a great job as well. I can’t imagine a better person to leave in charge.”
“Oh, shut it.”
There was something about the soft goodwill that Thorn radiated that made Corvo tired. It was nearly impossible to stay mad at someone who was so obviously appreciative. With a sigh he got down to business.
“Due to the incredible information gathering skills and powerful mental capabilities that yours truly possesses, everything is going fine. The big wolves are contained. The merchants are being organized by Jora. Peregrine has been helping us secure the valley and spot smugglers. The guild’s production side is growing nicely, and the combat side is continuing to train. Jorge and Oberlin have been leading hit squads to target Ragnarok, and our teams in the Battlefield of Flame and Shadow have been fighting back and forth with their teams.
“What else? Oh, the connection to Rakkam has been finished and we’ve been running merchant caravans through the tunnels. It is a nice source of income for players who have not joined Nova Luna and has mostly cleared up the problems we have with them. We have been hiring them to act as mercenaries, guarding the caravans. Due to the contracts we’re signing, they are self organizing and most importantly, self-regulating. We have also been able to seed some of our own players into the groups, which has helped in giving them uni
fied direction.”
Thorn tapped the armrest of the Wolf Throne as he thought through what he was hearing. In the real world, things like setting up a merchant group, or escort teams, or anything that required multiple people would take significant planning and time. In the game it happened in a matter of days. The rate at which things happened in the game was unbelievably accelerated.
“You are not afraid that they will try to disrupt us again?”
“No, they have no reason to. The last time was because we were limiting their way forward. However, now that they are organizing into mercenary teams they have significantly more negotiating power. People generally take the path of least resistance, so as long as we give them a way to go, they’ll walk that path.”
“It sounds so sinister when you say it that way.”
“The price of ruling, Thorn, the price of ruling,” Corvo said, sharing a status screen with Thorn. “As far as resources go we are developing as expected. I took the liberty of putting up a notice for some prospecting teams once I saw the updated map of your holdings. Again, we are using non-guild Wolfkin players to do the work. And so far we’ve had an overwhelming response. The idea of finding a rich ore vein and striking it rich is really enticing so there have been close to one hundred teams that have gone prospecting over the last couple days. More are signing up every day as well.
“On the military front we are in solid shape. We’ve prioritised recruiting players to our guild or pushing them toward the Temple of the Moon, so our entire military is currently native Wolfkin. The numbers of Wolfkin have exploded over the last two days which made it pretty easy to fill out a force of 15,000 soldiers. After talking with Elder Havva, I thought it would be best to stop there since I’m sure you’re going to want to fill the remaining 10,000 with players.”
“Do we have enough players in Nova Luna?” Thorn asked.
“Yes. The guild has grown significantly over the last few weeks. I know you were pretty tied up after the end of the World Quest, but that video that BurningCloud shared made you, and the guild, really popular. Remember how we were using the 15,000 spots in our casual guild to help lead and guide the Alliance? Well, we’re at nearly 45,000 players in the casual guild. We’ve simply had too many people applying. Oh, and nearly 10,000 in the professional guild. If you include the sub-guilds that we have been starting to manage the members of the Alliance, Nova Luna’s presence in the valley is nearly 600,000 players strong, with another eight million in the alliance.”
“What? No way.” Unable to process the number that Corvo had just thrown out, Thorn shook his head.
“Believe it. I don’t think you understand what you are sitting on, Earl Greymane.” Corvo’s eyes narrowed and his voice became deadly serious. “Wolfkin were a popular race when they landed and we saw a massive influx of players into the valley. Why do you think it has been expanding so much? Add to that an upstart guild that has near absolute control of the only source of racial advancement for the Wolfkin race and a deep tie-in with an easy source of dual category classes. Then, imagine that the incredibly eye-catching leader of that guild solos a World Quest level boss.”
“Don’t forget that he is the first landed noble player in the game.” Jora chimed in.
“Yes, thank you. He soloed a World Quest level boss, is the first landed noble in the game, and he controls an entire race of NPCs. Thorn, whether you realize it or not, you are at the center of this game. It doesn’t matter how you got here, you are here. And you need to understand that this is not just a game anymore. What might have started as a game to you has now become serious business.”
“I really had no idea.” Thorn rubbed his nose, still struggling to wrap his mind around the numbers that he was hearing.
The sound of the throne room door being opened caused everyone to turn toward the entrance where they saw Elder Havva stumbling forward with the help of a guard. Three huge gashes were opened in his side, and a metallic tang filled the air as he dripped blood on the floor.
“Elder!”
Thorn jumped from his chair, his feet leaving cracks in the throne room floor as he landed. Sprinting over to the guard, Thorn gently took the elderly Wolkin from him and sent him to fetch some healers. Quickly doing what he could to stop the bleeding, Thorn settled Elder Havva as comfortably as he could while activating [Call the Pack] to try and give the Elder some passive regeneration.
Thankfully, the healers arrived within a few moments and were able to begin healing Elder Havva, ensuring he did not die of blood loss. As the golden light shrouded Elder Havva and began to knit the flesh on his side back together, Thorn turned to the guard.
“What happened?”
“I’m not sure, my lord. Elder Havva stumbled out of the Temple of the Moon like this, and we brought him straight here. Many of the buildings in the Temple were on fire so the rest of my squad is trying to keep them contained.”
“Captain, get some teams together to put out the fires. Be careful when you are in the Temple in case there are enemies there.”
“Yes, sir.” Saluting, the captain vanished in a black blur.
“Peregrine, do you mind keeping an eye on what is going on from the air?” Thorn glanced at the short avatar before turning his attention back to Elder Havva.
“No problem.” Like Captain Del’har, Peregrine took off running, but rather than going down the stairs, she sprinted toward the balcony, a piercing whistle echoing from her lips. A quick hop put her on the balcony’s edge where she paused for a moment before leaping out into the air. With an answering whistle, Roko flashed down from the clouds, darting underneath the falling halfling and catching her neatly.
Inside the throne room, Thorn was about to speak to Corvo when Elder Havva shuddered and woke up. The gashes on his side were still open and festering, resisting the healer’s attempts.
“He’s stable, but without constant healing he will deteriorate again. I don’t know what hit him, but we can’t get rid of it.” Helpless, the healers looked at Thorn who was about to explode.
Reaching out a trembling hand, Elder Havva held onto Thorn’s arm with a surprising amount of strength as he gasped out his words through the pain in his side.
“It was Gelish. The corruption has returned and is stronger than ever.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
“Gelish? What did he do?” Thorn struggled to keep his aura in check as anger boiled in his chest.
“The corruption of Karrandras was wiped from his blood, but a new corruption has risen up in its place due to the honeyed words of Mayari the Cursed.” The words leaked from Elder Havva’s mouth in between spurts of gasping.
“You mean the fake high priestess in the forest?”
As Thorn spoke he was searching through his inventory for a vial of the World Tree’s sap. When they had emptied the pool of sap after Velin cleansed the World Tree’s corruption, he had stored a large number of vials for the alchemists in Nova Luna. Elder Havva’s body glowed with golden light as one of the healers cast another healing spell, temporarily easing the elder’s pain.
Giving the vial to the healer who was tending to the gashes, Thorn clenched his fist. He had let Gelish go because he thought that the former head disciple would be able to benefit the Wolfkin, but it seemed to have been a mistake. The healer carefully spread the sap of the World Tree on the gashes on Elder Havva’s side, making sure to cover the edges where a sickly red sheen lingered.
As the sap cleared the corruption that infected his wounds, Elder Havva’s pained expression eased. It took a total of three vials, but with the help of the sap the corruption was soon completely removed from his body and Elder Havva was able to sit up. His fur still matted with sweat, he took a few deep breaths and sat cross-legged, sinking into a deep meditation.
As impatient as he was, Thorn knew better than to rush a master who was meditating. Within two minutes the Elder’s frail aura had changed, deepening and strengthening as he breathed in and out. The effects of the sap of the
World Tree went far beyond simply clearing corruption, and just as Akira experienced, Elder Havva was finding his body and bloodline enhanced after ingesting it.
*crack*
With a low snapping, Elder Havva’s eyes shot open, glowing with life. Surprise flashed across his eyes as he examined himself. Much of the grey fur that had covered his body had turned into a rich brown, and he felt vitality coursing through his veins. Jumping to his feet, he stretched and then, as if remembering where he was, suddenly bowed toward Thorn.
“Lord Greymane, my thanks for your favor.”