War Games

by Nikita Thorn

  This evening, however, as soon as Seiki logged in, he was relieved to find a bird waiting for him: an official Shinshioka black pigeon with a message written on red paper, which instructed him to go talk to Lieutenant Kato. Fearing a glitch and further delay, he had immediately gone to the Soldiers’ Quarters to complete the quest, which was why he was late to Nezumi Temple, and why he now had the second quest in the chain—one called Report to Commander Nakatani [Level 14 Quest]—safely sitting in his quest log, which he was hoping to get done by tonight.

  “Okay.” Seiki nodded toward the temple entrance. “Let’s get this over with. Then straight onto Nakatani.”

  His friends did not share his enthusiasm about the instance. Ippei sighed. Mairin yawned and stretched, and Kentaro grimaced as he packed away his precious high-level cooked food and picked up his golden staff. Even Yamura, who for the past month had not been shy to hold them to their word, seemed a bit reluctant.

  If this was just another night, Seiki would probably not be so thrilled by the idea of yet another hide-and-seek game with an eight-year-old boy and various paint ingredients, but starting on the War Games quest chain had filled him with a rare sense of purpose and optimism.

  “Well, here goes nothing again,” said Kentaro with a sigh.

  “Aren’t you at least getting a lot of Calligraphy paint ingredients off this?” said Yamura casually, showing no sign of guilt as he rattled his bamboo quiver to check how many arrows he had left.

  “Yes, but there are only so many Brown Pigments you will ever need,” said the houshi. “Or the whole game will ever need, for that matter. I can open a shop selling Brown Pigments right now and I’ll never have to re-supply, ever.”

  It had been over a month since they had promised Yamura to run the instance for his coveted Firerat Fur Armguard, a ryoushi-specific piece that periodically healed the wearer. They had thought nothing at the time. Too high-spirited by the semi-victory at the White Crane Hall, they would have agreed to pretty much anything. The problem with this soon became apparent, as the piece allegedly had only a 4% drop chance. And after the tenth run, they realized they were definitely not the luckiest people in Shinshioka.

  “Just give up,” said Ippei as he switched out his Hikari for his Jade Steel Sword, which was more suitable for instance runs. “The thing doesn’t drop. It’s a myth.”

  “The Society confirms its existence,” said Yamura. “And I’ve got a really good feeling about this one.”

  “You say that every time,” said Mairin. “I’m sure by now there’s a far better ryoushi armguard you can get.”

  Yamura shrugged. “Hey, this one is, like, really rare. The last one dropped more than nine months ago for some guy who no longer plays. And from the Society’s illustration, it looks kinda badass. Come on, after, what, sixteen, seventeen runs, we must be over 60% already.”

  “Chance doesn’t work that way,” Ippei said, clearly not for the first time. “And the number isn’t even verified. It’s the Society’s best guess, and you know what that means.” An idea crossed his mind. “You know what? I think there must be a limit to the deal. This is the last time we’re doing this temple, and whether it drops or not, we’re done.”

  “Hey,” cried Yamura. “We’re over 60%. You just can’t decide to stop.”

  “Well, now that Seiki’s Level 14, we have better things to do now.”

  Seiki chuckled. He knew what Ippei was thinking. Now that War Games were available to both of them, he would not be surprised if his friend never set foot in another instance ever again.

  Yamura frowned. “Back at the White Crane Hall, remember who saved your—”

  “Oh, that would be me, actually,” Kentaro pointed out.

  Mairin shook her head. “This whole thing is your fault.”

  Kentaro smiled. “Would you rather give the good people of the Rogami Clan the pleasure of executing you back at the siege?”

  “Now in retrospect, I would.” Ippei sounded almost serious. “Anything is better than this bloody rat all over again.”

  “Okay, guys, let’s get this started,” Seiki said, more impatiently than he had intended.

  The instance was not difficult once you figured it out. Neither was the matter of figuring it out in the first place, since the Social Guild was more than happy to point you to the correct folktale the instance was based on. The several stages were a direct retelling of the story.

  “Here we are again, Joji.” Mairin popped into her fox form and dashed off toward the temple gate. The instance featured heavy kiting, so speed-oriented classes, especially kitsune, appeared to be having a better time than everyone else. Mairin seemed like the only one who did not absolutely hate it, but that could be because she thought Joji was adorable.

  The story of the instance revolved around Joji, a young boy of eight or nine with a strange fondness of drawing cats. The problem started when it eventually became the only thing he did, which greatly worried his family. In hopes of having the boy learn other useful skills, the family decided to send Joji to live under the supervision of an old priest. Needless to say, Joji disliked the strict life in the temple, and would often hide away to avoid his chores, and this led to the first task the Nezumi Temple instance required players to do: locate the boy, who could be anywhere from on top of one of the roofs to behind the temple well.

  Once you found him, Joji would ask you to go look for his painting brush, which his guardian, the old temple abbot, had confiscated. That very tiny brush could also be anywhere in the temple. The worst case so far had been when it spawned under one of the buildings in a space only a kitsune in fox form could reach, which had taken Seiki and his friends a good forty minutes to find.

  After being reunited with his beloved paintbrush, Joji would request you to gather a random combination of herbs, flowers and soot, as well as other alchemical compounds from around the temple. You would then have to grind them together to make a specific color of paint for him, which he would use to draw a gigantic cat on one of the temple’s paper walls.

  The boss—a giant demon rat with a very annoying paralyzing Squeak ability—would then appear out of the bamboo wood adjacent to the temple, and players had to engage it and whittle down its health. After it reached 5% health, the rat would start to go berserk, wrecking buildings and dealing tremendous damage to everyone. The deal was that at least one person needed to stay alive until Joji’s drawn cat magically came to life to finish off the thing.

  To make matters more interesting, the old abbot, who very much disapproved of Joji’s hobby, would be patrolling the temple grounds. If he spotted you, you had to fight him until he dropped to 30% health, at which point he would stop to heal himself, giving people time to run out of his sight. The priest did not kill, but his Capture teleported players to the locked temple storage, and the rest of the party had to go find the key from his study to free captured members. If everyone was caught, or died to the rat boss, the instance reset and you had to start over.

  All in all, it was not a bad instance, and Seiki had to admit that watching a black rat the size of a car claw its way through wooden buildings in the last phase was rather fascinating. However, while the existence of random elements kept things fresh in the beginning, after so many runs, the fact that they could not mindlessly go through the whole thing without concentrating actually made it even more of a tedious challenge. This was not helped by the fact that the end result was always predictable, and that they were not going to find a Firerat Fur Armguard in the loot pile.

  “Hey, the sooner you start, the sooner it’s over,” said Yamura. “I’ve also got some more quests to do today.”

  Seiki had a feeling that his friend had also given up on expecting the drop, and the run was just another thing that had become their routine.

  “Last time,” said Ippei again as they reached the entrance.

  The familiar notification greeted them as they stepped through the gate.

 
Welcome to Nezumi Temple!

  Mairin was already inside, talking to the NPC novice priest standing near the entrance, who was there to clue people in about the story.

  “Hello, Mizuno,” said the kitsune. “We are here to find your lost apprentice and kill the demon rat that is about to attack your temple.”

  A wry smile appeared on the young priest’s face. “In that case, get on with it, then.”

  Seiki had to appreciate how some NPCs adjusted their dialogue so no one had to pretend any of this was new.

  “Joji,” shouted Mairin. “You’d better be outside this time. And no climbing roofs.”

  Ippei sighed. “Can we please try not to fight the abbot this early?”

  The best strategy was try to remain in stealth for as long as possible. After the abbot discovered you, he would start to actively seek for you, and the group was most likely bound to spend the rest of the instance doing the extra task of freeing party members from the temple storage.

  Seiki looked around at the familiar sight. The temple consisted of five buildings: a prayer hall, a kitchen, living quarters, a storage building, and a library. There was a little spirit shrine in a corner where dead players respawned. The premises were enclosed with high walls on three sides, and the back opened toward a thick impassable bamboo forest, where the rat boss would eventually emerge from.

  “Okay, same strategy,” said Ippei. “Spread out. Pick a building each. Seiki, take the roofs as usual?”

  Seiki nodded. In the first few runs, they discovered there was a climbable red pine right beside the library, which gave access to the roofs. The buildings were close together, and Seiki found that if he came out of a full Slide the wrong way, which was to cancel it without slowing down at all, the momentum would be enough to propel him across the gap between the library and the prayer hall. The prayer hall was higher than the other buildings, and was situated right in the middle. From there, he had a perfect overhead view of the place, making it easy to warn his friends when the abbot was getting close.

  As he turned to make way toward the library, Seiki suddenly paused. The temple sat in its usual peaceful silence, yet he had a feeling that something was different this time. He glanced at his friends to see if anyone had noticed anything out of place, but they were all preoccupied with conversation.

  “You think that’s a good idea? Going alone into an abandoned temple?” the kitsune was saying in a low voice. “Haven’t you heard what the Society has been claiming in the latest newsletter? All kinds of weird things are happening in instances, like someone was doing this rich lord’s manor and they suddenly found a white hand sticking out of a wall and it grabbed their ankle and started draining life.”

  “You wish,” said Ippei.

  Mairin was not giving up that easily. “I mean, look over there. I’m sure that tree wasn’t in the same place.” She added ominously, “I think it moved from the last time we were here.”

  Seiki knew that was a complete bluff, since he had tried climbing all the trees in the temple and was therefore very familiar with all their locations. The tree in question was a tall unclimbable juniper, which rustled its needle-like leaves from a timely gust of wind, as if in response.

  “See?” said Mairin. “Have we ever tried looking up there? I also heard that for the longest time, no one realized sometimes there’s a dead body hanging in a tree just outside the cave in the spider dungeon. And the corpse talks, you know. It’s a rare, and it gives you a riddle. If you answer wrong, it jumps down and strangles you.”

  “Hey,” said Yamura uneasily.

  Mairin stifled a giggle.

  Seiki was only half-listening to his friends, focused that he was on his surroundings. “She’s got a point,” he said quietly as he looked back at the group. “I think something’s different,” he added, a little uncertain.

  His life had been nothing but routine, so now anything slightly different stood out like a blazing alarm, even when he could not tell what exactly it was.

  Kentaro looked at him and sighed. “Oh, you, too?”

  “No, I’m serious,” said Seiki.

  Mairin grinned mischievously at him.

  Seiki opened his mouth to explain that he was not actually playing along with her attempt to convince people they were in a haunted version of the normal instance, but was interrupted by Yamura’s soft curse.

  “That’s the abbot,” said the ryoushi.

  Abbot Arai [Level Unknown], clad in a non-descript black robe and holding a shiny black staff, was turning the corner, and the group quickly moved to one side to avoid being detected this early in the instance.

  “Spread out,” said Ippei again. Eager to make the runs more efficient, Ippei had tried to assign search zones for everybody, but no one seemed to remember or care.

  “Watch out for white hands sticking out of walls,” Mairin whispered, before activating her fox form and running off.

  Seiki had a terrible feeling that, instead of looking for Joji, she would now try to sneak around and grab people’s ankles, which would probably quickly turn the instance into a huge disaster.

  “I’ll take the library,” said Seiki as he headed off toward the building. He was probably the only one who had ever stuck to Ippei’s plan, since it really made the most sense. As the only person who could climb that red pine high enough to reach the roofs, it was reasonable that he would also cover the library on his way to higher grounds.

  The buildings were all singled-storied and the library was easy to search in this phase. The shelves were lined up in tidy rows, offering few hiding spots for a small boy. After doing a quick scan and opening the large chest in the corner, which this time contained a lootable Medium-Grade Blank Calligraphy Scroll, Seiki headed out, waited for the abbot to walk past and started climbing the tree.

  Halfway up, a horse whistle—long once and short twice—sounded faintly from the kitchen building at the back of the temple. This was the only part of Ippei’s strategy that everyone remembered, which meant that someone had located Joji, and they were ready to move onto the next stage and start looking for the brush.

  Perhaps in keeping with the main challenge of stealth, this particular instance gave no further prompts until the final stage, which forced players to come up with their own way of communicating.

  In the beginning, they tried shouting, but that immediately alerted the abbot to their presence. Then they tried sending pigeons, but it turned out to be too time-consuming. Eventually, Ippei came up with the idea of using horse whistles, since it only made the abbot humph in suspicion. Riding was not available in the instance, so they could whistle all they wanted without the risk of having mounts running amok all over the place.

  Seiki quickly dropped back down from the pine tree. After running the instance so many times, they now knew the brush only spawned in the second phase, so there was no way you could find it before finding the boy. It meant he now had to look in the library again.

  At first, the library seemed like a nightmare to search, when the object they were trying to get their hands on was so small. After a few tries in the previous weeks, however, Seiki made a happy discovery that there was indeed a trick to it. Lighting a candle, he went through the shelves to gauge the level of dust collecting on them. If the brush was indeed here, as a clue, one shelf would be clean, in which case he would have to unroll each of the scrolls to look for it.

  This time, however, the library shelves were all covered in dust, which meant the brush was most likely not in the building. So, Seiki simply had to check the corners and the chest once more before heading out once again toward the roof.

  The air was crisp and fresh outside as he pulled himself up to the top of the tree, and Seiki stopped for a moment to appreciate the perfect serenity of the night. The northern mountain range lined the edge of the horizon, and all around was a sea of bamboo and tall grass. He could see dim lights from the Kaneda Village not too far away. Much further to the right was
Shinshioka, dotted with bright lamps of all colors at the moment. Seiki unconsciously let out a soft sigh as he took in the scenery, part satisfied, part wistful. If Ippei had his way, this would be their last time in this instance, and despite not particularly liking it, Seiki could not help but feel a little sense of loss.

  Something thudded softly on the ground ahead of him. Presumably, one of his friends had tripped over a piece of farming equipment. The old abbot spun around and started heading toward the source of the noise. Turning his attention back to the task at hand, Seiki quietly leapt from the pine branch onto the library roof and looked ahead. To the left in front of him, the prayer hall loomed high to provide the perfect vantage point for the whole temple.

  Seiki mapped out a long Slide to throw him across the gap toward the hall. The roof at his destination was slanted and difficult to land on, but he had got a lot of practice over the weeks and knew exactly where to grab. Activating another Slide forward as soon as both his feet touched the cold tiles, he pushed energy down to steady himself, and let out a deep breath as he perched himself on the highest point.

  This was his favorite part of the instance.

  Seeing that whoever had tripped over the garden hoe had gotten away safely, Seiki once again took time to glance around at the moon in the sky, the swaying bamboo forest at the back of the temple, as well as the sleepy temple below, shrouded in near darkness as if behind a gray veil. He used to hate night time in the game, but he somehow no longer did. Despite the scene of destruction about to happen when the rat boss made its entrance, there was something calming about this temple, and perhaps something familiar as well.

  Seiki silently watched the abbot take another turn around the living quarters on his endless patrol. He had started to take a liking to the poor man, as he noticed that—under the veneer of rigidity—the old man really cared about setting Joji straight on a righteous and productive path. And that, too, seemed familiar.