War Games

by Nikita Thorn

  Laid out horizontally in front of all the temporary offerings was a gray, wooden Sheathed Blade. Must be Level 18 to unsheathe.

  Seiki knew it would perhaps be smarter to have all these items in his territory box, so he would be able to retrieve them from anywhere, but it somehow bothered him to see the Sheathed Blade lying among piles of Broken Amikiri Claws or Hairy Okka Skin or other useless objects he had no time to pawn yet. So over the past month, noteworthy pieces had inadvertently started to collect in front of the master swordsman’s spirit tablet.

  “Four more levels, Master Tsujihara,” said Seiki, looking at the sheathed sword, as he lit an incense stick and placed it in the middle of the metal pot.

  Peace of mind gained. +1% maximum health. 90 minutes remaining.

  The heal-like warmth embraced him, like a coming home after walking through snow, and Seiki wondered if he was becoming addicted to the effect. At Level 14, the extra health was only a little more than a hundred points, which was entirely negligible, but the minor buff gave him an excuse to keep coming here.

  The inside of the memorial hall was painted dark red and gold, and decorated with hanging scrolls that clued visitors in on Shinshioka’s past glory and struggles, battles won and lost, and the countless half-forgotten heroes who had laid down their lives for the city. But since no one ever visited the shrine if a quest did not send them here, the place was always empty, perpetually frozen in a gentle smoke-filled lull and tinged with lingering sadness. The atmosphere often put Seiki’s mind to rest. Somehow, it was here that he felt understood.

  “Well, I’ll get there,” said Seiki quietly.

  The storm had calmed, and he no longer felt like he was struggling simply not to drown. Now he was adrift in the ocean, holding onto the floating debris, and looking at the horizon, desperate for a sign post. At times, he wondered if he even missed the violent emotions he used to feel, since normalcy was deathly quiet in comparison, and so Seiki had been filling his days with noise, with activity, with endless quests he did not understand. He had even volunteered through a charity to check machine transcriptions of old printed books and tagged and categorized them, much to everyone’s joy and praise. But the fact remained that he had no idea where this would lead. Then, there was also this unspoken fear that this was it: this was as good as it would ever get. And so he ran.

  He was no longer running away, but toward. He just did not know yet toward what.

  Seiki could not help picking up the Sheathed Blade again, completely unashamed that this was perhaps the hundredth time he had done so. Being almost weightless, it felt like a trinket of little value, but within it was a promise that one day something worthy would form from it, right in his grasp, and he would finally be holding something solid, heavy and real.

  In the meantime, however, he still had four levels to work through.

  “Well, I’m pretty close,” said Seiki, turning his attention back to the altar. Despite the rate of experience gain slowing down, four more levels seemed almost within reach, considering the inexplicable large chunk of experience he recently got from the Nezumi Temple instance. Having just turned three quests in earlier that night, he was now almost halfway toward Level 15. “Now all I need is to find a couple secret bosses elsewhere to fight.” He grinned at the silent spirit tablet. “Easy, right?”

  It had been three days since the Nezumi Temple instance, but so far no one had been able to find out any more information regarding unmarked quests, or whether they were supposed to exist.

  Kentaro had managed to learn from his contacts that there were indeed rumors about the fire-rat in the Nezumi Temple. There were also unverified reports of fire-themed and class-specific gear drops, like Yamura’s armguard and the piece Seiki wore on his hand right now. The other known one seemed to be an obake charm called Shimenawa Rope of Burned Souls. Out of curiosity, Seiki had stopped by the Bureau of Records to look up when the Crimsonfire Tekko last dropped, but he did not have access to loot logs older than a month, and did not fancy spending extra Favors just to get further. Yamura also reported that some of his clan mates had confirmed running into rare bosses in group instances, like an upgraded version of a water dragon, or a ball of flame that appeared out of nowhere and quickly killed the whole group. Yet, no one seemed to know what triggered them or if they were completely random. Despite all this additional information, there was no mention of Shadow Lord encounters or unmarked items anywhere.

  After experimenting with the label-less black stone, they had found yet another strange thing about it: it could not be Pickpocketed, and was not lootable upon death.

  “Maybe it’s like a horse-whistle,” Mairin had guessed, since that was one of the few objects in the game with the same properties. “You figure out how to use it and then you can summon a demonic mount. Or a tinderbox that summons the Shadow Lord himself.”

  Curious, and admittedly intrigued by the idea of being able to summon the end game boss all they wanted, they had tried striking it with weapons and hitting it with all kinds of magical abilities, but nothing came of their efforts. Luckily, the object seemed safely indestructible and was still perfectly unscratched after extensive abuse. In the end, Ippei decided that they should simply continue to keep it a secret until more information surfaced.

  “Now that the Rogami Clan has started to forget about you, this is the worst time to attract their attention again,” the samurai had told Seiki. “And not to mention those Kano Castle guys. Who knows what they’re up to?” For some reason, Seiki had a feeling his friend bore much more enmity toward the Kano Castle than the Rogami Clan.

  Seiki had first thought he would put the strange black stone among all the other special objects in the old man’s antechamber, since it was noteworthy in its own way. But as he retrieved it from his pocket again, a shiver ran through his body.

  You feel evil exuding from the object.

  “Oh, right. It’s cursed,” said Seiki, deciding against the idea.

  The shiver felt almost like a very mild version of Fear, and he thought the stone would be right at home rolling about among piles of monster parts in his box instead. He held it up to the candle to observe it one more time, and blinked as he noticed something unusual.

  The object cast a very faint shadow: not of itself, but in the shape of a rat. For a moment, his mind struggled to wrap itself around the unnatural sight as he turned it around to let it catch light from different angles. But apart from the strange shadow, nothing else was remarkable.

  “The quest was called Shadow of the Midnight Rat after all,” said Seiki. “Or maybe it’s just a toy?” He quickly made a mental note to tell his friends later about this discovery.

  “Never mind, Master Tsujihara. I’ve changed my mind.” Seiki chuckled as he put the black stone back into his pocket. It could very well be a glitch, since Seiki had suspected he had done an unmarked instance before—the one that had given him the Sheathed Blade.

  As far as he knew, strange glitches did happen, which the Society’s newsletter sometimes reported in their column titled Peculiar Tales in the style of ghost stories of old, which was most likely where Mairin got her ideas. Kentaro said that, according to the common understanding, most of them occurred with the removal of obsolete objects.

  “Talking about glitches, I think even your incense pot is glitching right now, since the stem of my last incense stick should have despawned a long time ago.” Seiki stretched his back as he turned to leave. “Well, I’m off to sign for my new apartment now, Master Tsujihara. It’s right down the street, so we’ll be neighbors pretty soon.”

  As any longtime player knew, efficiency was key. Tonight, Seiki had optimized his route through Shinshioka, so that he would turn in his three quests, and stop by Mani Shrine before making his way to his final destination for the session: the real estate office just a few blocks away on Trade Street. After saving up, he finally had enough gold to sign a second deed for a new territory in West City, which was
another thing he was rather excited about.

  Seiki had been planning to get himself out of the tiny Central Crossing room at the corner opposite the pawn shop for quite some time now, and after researching, he eventually found a nice fourth-floor territory in an alley just off Trade Street, with a view of the Mani Shrine’s multiple green roofs.

  The rent was decent, at fifty gold a month, but the one-time payment to own it in the first place was over four hundred gold, which he had just managed to put together. Technically, this made absolutely no difference to the gameplay, since he could be using only the pawn shop territory and still not miss out on anything. The decision meant that from now on, a decent chunk of his gold from completing quests and selling his wood blocks would go toward having a high window, a soft futon, a floor table and about sixteen mats of tatami flooring, and perhaps the possibility of purchasing a larger chest to store items in. But in a way, Seiki felt he finally deserved these little pleasures, of having something, of building something, at least until he managed to figure out the rest of whatever he had to figure out.

  As was his habit, Seiki peered cautiously out the gate of Mani Shrine before exiting. He had learned to spot the faint wavering air effect that could give away a ninja in Camouflage, and was glad to see none. Perhaps Ippei was right that all the people who wanted him dead had finally gotten bored, since no one had tried to assassinate or one-shot him as they rode by in the past week.

  Although the aftermath from the attempted siege of the White Crane Hall was slowly becoming a thing of the past, Kentaro had found Seiki a curious little-known bag charm that would warn him whenever a Rogami Clan member was in the vicinity. It was called a Nasaga Charm, and was a tiny bunch of skillfully twisted black and white threads, with the word Rogami written on top, added with Level 18 Calligraphy by the houshi himself.

  “It never hurts to know when your enemies are near,” the houshi had told him. “And better be safe than sorry.”

  Unfortunately, the item seemed to be a broken version of a resource-locating charm, with minimal accuracy. Seiki soon realized he had to be directly facing a Rogami Clan member for it to work, and it seemed to do a sweep only every twenty seconds or so. It also behaved erratically around private instances, and had also inexplicably once returned a warning for an NPC labeled Shrine Worshipper [Level 12]. Perhaps it was because of this reason that the source for the charm had been removed from the game, but Seiki kept it on him anyway since Kentaro said he had gone through several loopholes just to get it.

  It was already past peak hours tonight. Trade Street was slightly less crowded than usual, and the bag charm lay perfectly still in his bag. Seiki was about to cross a small alley toward the so-called real estate office, when he froze.

  His hands had automatically drawn his Kohagane dagger before he even realized, and he spun around to Parry an incoming projectile. A sharp clank rang out as metal collided and a small dart dropped to the ground at his feet.

  Seiki sighed when he discovered what it was: a ninja’s Poison Dart, with a green marking to indicate which kind of poison was on it. Green was the standard, and Seiki knew exactly what it meant.

  “I swear this guy’s got a sixth sense,” said an annoyed voice Seiki instantly recognized as belonging to Hibi of the Shadow Manor.

  It was actually no sixth sense, but an audio cue, which Seiki had learned to recognize. It sounded like a very quiet flap of sleeves, regardless of whether the ninja in question was wearing sleeves or not. And in this situation, Seiki heard the second flap coming from Hibi’s direction almost as soon as she had spoken.

  Even with the audio cue, it was difficult enough to block one dart, and blocking two in quick succession was perhaps impossible. Before he could turn around once more and try to Parry, Seiki felt Hibi’s dart pierce the back of his calf like a tiny frozen pin.

  You are poisoned with busu poison! Your movement speed is slowed by 20%.

  The dart itself did very little damage, but poison was poison, and it only needed to connect. Seiki grimaced as the sluggish coldness started to creep up his leg, slowing down his reaction time.

  With the ninja girl being Level 20, the poison alone was not quite enough to kill him, but they most likely knew that too and it was obviously not what they had intended.

  “At least, this is new,” Seiki said, wondering if it was because he had been getting a lot of practice on dodging Camouflaged Assassin’s Stabs, so the ninjas were finally trying a different approach.

  Seiki did not have to take a guess as to who the first dart belonged to. He was not surprised to see Taka of the Shadow Manor [Level 19], clad in the usual tight-fitting black, rushing out toward him from the shadows. The silver glaive immediately left the ninja’s hand with his favorite Spinning Blade and started to whirl dangerously through the air.

  “Is it business or personal this time?” asked Seiki. The Shadow Manor had made a public vow to take the life of anyone who had killed one of their members, and to do it twice. But considering the mess over the past few weeks, it was not clear any more what was what. One thing Seiki knew, however, was that this was the first time they had ever gone for an open attack. Seiki shook his head as he drew his Hikari. “And really? Right on Trade Street?”

  A quick glance around showed him that, at least, they had picked a time where the Patrols were a decent distance away. Seiki ducked under the spinning crescent blade and took a swipe at Hibi, who was closer, since he knew he could not fight them both at the same time. This would give him some more room to breathe.

  The ninja girl leapt backward to avoid the sword, crying, “Whoa, whoa, I’m done here.”

  “What?” Taka said as he rushed in from the opposite direction, peering across Seiki’s shoulder at his clan mate. “What do you mean you’re done?”

  Seiki turned and bluffed Taka with an energy-less Sweeping Blade, forcing the ninja to run around it. Taka swerved and caught the returning glaive in his left hand, before tossing it out again.

  “I told you earlier,” Hibi snapped.

  Paying no attention to their conversation, Seiki crouched under the crescent glaive once more and mapped his path for a slow curved Slide toward Taka, choosing to spend quite a bit of extra energy for maximum speed.

  The assassin swore out loud as Seiki materialized right in front of him, striking out with a real Sweeping Blade this time. The ninja activated his Shadow Strike to get out of the way, but he was a little too late. Before Taka could disappear and relocate himself, Seiki’s Hikari caught him in the ribs, bringing down his health by about a tenth.

  With six levels between them, Seiki’s attacks still posed no real threat to the ninja, but that was not what Seiki had in mind. As Taka almost lost his balance from the blow, Seiki abruptly ended the Slide and threw himself out of it, right onto the Shadow Manor assassin.

  They both crashed down heavily on the ground, and Seiki could not help chuckling in mild surprise at how much distance it had given him. Perhaps having spent time practicing jumping the roofs of Nezumi Temple had taught him something after all.

  Taka grunted as he struggled to free himself, but Seiki trapped his arm before the ninja could reach for his dagger.

  “Remember I’m not getting paid for this,” Hibi continued from somewhere behind them. “So I’m not going to do your job for you. And I can’t afford to lose more Shogun Honors. That already took four.”

  Mildly amused by their internal bickering—which he was starting to see more of, now that they were having trouble killing him quickly—Seiki glanced back at the airborne glaive. Spinning Blade allowed ninjas to use their weapons like a boomerang, and Taka’s crescent glaive was swishing through the air as it came flying back toward them.

  An idea sprang to Seiki’s mind.

  Tightening his grip around Taka’s wrist and shoulder, Seiki jumped into a side roll. He used the momentum to throw the ninja over his body and slam the man onto the ground to his right.

  It was
essentially a gamble that the silver crescent glaive would be too close to completing its circuit to have corrected its trajectory to return to the owner, who had suddenly changed positions. With a loud clank, the flying blade hit the ground where Taka had been a second earlier, bounced and landed a few feet away.

  Seiki blinked at the unexpected successful Disarm. “It really worked?” He then started laughing.

  Despite the inconvenience they posed, Seiki actually welcomed these Shadow Manor encounters, since he was starting to enjoy seeing what ridiculous strategies he could come up with that would never be viable in real life. Of course, it did not always work, but it was a rare chance to really experiment. At times, he even wished Taka knew a bit more about the basics of grappling.

  With a hiss, the ninja evaporated from within Seiki’s grip. A Shadow Strike untangled ninjas from any close combat, but it also materialized them back at quite a predictable spot behind the enemy. With Seiki’s back on the ground, the calculation put Taka right beside him, and Seiki spun around as the ninja re-appeared, forcing the man to use another Shadow Strike.

  Taka was out of energy. Before the ninja could recover, Seiki threw himself over the assassin once more, pinning him down. The ninja glared as he turned to shout to his colleague. “Stab him. Hibi! Hey! Hey, where the hell are you going?”

  Seiki laughed as he could hear the ninja girl moving further and further away. “I’m holding onto my two Honor Points, thanks,” said Hibi. “Use your own.”

  The penalty for instigating combat within Shinshioka was four Honor Points, and the penalty for killing a player was another two. Seiki himself had already lost two of his own from having returned a damaging blow, but he did not mind much, since he was now safely within the range of a Favored Member of the Court.