“You’re really going to invite me to join you just like that?” Jicker asked surprised.

“Sure, why not. You passed all the tests after all.” She said shrugging.

“What tests?”

She began ticking them off her fingers. “You’re not part of a guild already, you aren’t going to rat us out either way, you have similar beliefs and most importantly, Gabe didn’t put you through a wall.”

“It’s true!” Gabe said with a huge smile on his face.

“...Okay I guess. What’s his real name anyway?” Jicker asked, curious despite himself.

“Huh? It’s Gabe; I thought he told you that... Gabe what garbage have you been saying this time.”

“Nothing! I was good I swear!” He said putting his hands up in defence.”

“Really? So if I ask the new guy...?”

“I....may have suggested that I have a secret identity. But only because I was bored, I swear!”

The rest of the room groaned, the woman rubbing her temples. “Call me Mary by the way, and now you see why dealing with Gabe is part of the test. He might not look it, and certainly doesn’t act the part, but he’s one of our heaviest hitters, and could be our leader if he managed to get his act together.”

“I guess I can see that... wait, really? You’re leading an evil cult and your name is Mary?” he asked incredulously

“It’s short for Bloody Mary, and we’re not evil. I thought he explained this to you?”

“Sort of? He said that you were a group of people with certain natures, but I mean come on! You’re in a secret lair wearing black robes guarded by zombies. That’s pretty classic bad guy material.”

“And if we were in a secret base wearing white robes and guarded by nature spirits, would we suddenly be good guys?”

Jicker was silent at that, not having a good answer.

“It’s that sort of thinking we’re trying to deal with here. We’re fairly relaxed about what we do for the most part though. It’s more about helping each other out, than doing quests for glory and stuff.”

“Up until recently anyway.” Interjected Gabe.

“Yes, thank you, Gabe for giving away information to a non-member.” She said. “So back to the question: Do you want to join?”

“...what’s the guilds stance on withholding information?” he said awkwardly, not wanting to have to show his achievements.

Mary raised an eyebrow. “You mean like how you did the thing with the bush out the front of the cave?”She laughed at his horrified reaction. “We’ve already told you that we’re a secret group, and you’re surprised we have people watching around our base? Well, while I'm definitely curious, everyone here knows a lot about keeping secrets for a variety of reasons. So as long as it doesn’t impact the guild, feel free to keep it to yourself.”

Jicker let out a sigh of relief. “Then I’m in.”

Ding!

You have failed the quest: The Moon Rises.

You are unable to join the Rising Moon.

“Err.” Jicker began, not sure how to proceed.

“What’s up?” Mary asked.

“I failed to join? Is there some initiation or something I have to do first?”

“Failed? No it should be just accepting the offer to join.” She looked confused for a moment before realization dawned on her. “Wait, what level are you?”

“Fourteen? Is that a problem?”

“Yes, it is.” She said through gritted teeth, looking at Gabe who was trying to casually move away from her. “When we formed the group we put a minimum requirement of level sixty, to ensure we only picked up people who knew what they were doing. Gabe was supposed to make sure you qualified.”

“He sounded like he knew what he was doing!” Gabe said, trying to defend himself. “I figured if he knew what was up, then he had to be a high enough level.”

“I recently started as a new character, so that might have thrown him off.” Jicker said quickly, trying to prevent her from killing him.

“Oh, so you’re one of the secondaries then? That explains it I guess.” She said, calming down as Gabe mouthed his thanks to him.

“Secondaries?”

“You’re not the only person to do a reset since the upheaval. A lot of players who had left the game are coming back to start again in a fresh world. And with a heap of practice and experience behind them they’re rising through the ranks pretty quickly. That’s what you are I take it?”

“Pretty much.”

“Okay. Well we can’t let you in at the moment, but if you still haven’t joined another guild by the time you hit sixty, you’re welcome to join up with us.” She said.

Ding!

Quest: The moon rises...eventually.

You have been offered a place in the Rising moon once you qualify.

Success: Join and learn more about the organization.

Failure: Refuse or join another guild.

“Thanks for the offer. I’ll probably take you up on that, but I don't know how long it will take. I'm not much of a fighter if you hadn’t noticed.” Jicker said.

“Consider us shocked. But if you want to be part of our throwdown, you’ve got a month.” Said Gabe.

Mary looked at Gabe. “Is there any way for you to keep a secret?” Turning back to Jicker she tapped her cheek, deep in thought. “Actually...walk with us for a moment.”

~~~~~~

Unlike the rest of the structure he’d seen, the passage that Jicker, Mary and Gabe walked down seemed to be naturally formed.

“Now,” Mary began, “I normally wouldn’t say anything about this to someone who hasn’t even become part of the guild, but we’re pretty over worked at the moment, so we’ll take what we can get. To begin with, have you heard about magical resonance before?”

“I have, but it wasn’t anything I looked into before.”

“Fair enough, that’s the case with most people. The short version is that the environment affects any magic cast in it, depending on how compatible it is. For example, you’d have an easier time summoning water in the ocean than you would a desert, or casting fireballs in a volcano than the arctic. Makes sense so far?”

“Sure, seems like common sense really.”

“It is, but here’s the part that people didn’t really pay attention to before. While the environment affects the spell, the spell affects it back. Now normally, this is on a tiny scale because, well, the world is really big. But what would happen if a lot of energy got dumped out all at once?”

Jicker paused mid-step. “The upheaval.”

“Bingo. All that power got dumped all at once, and began to change things, but it could only absorb it so fast, the runoff had to go somewhere. And so, we were left with these.”

As they made a final turn down the tunnel, Jicker saw it, since it would be hard to miss. Floating a few feet off the ground in the centre of the chamber was a large raw crystal, several feet long and near pitch black, it rotated slowly on the spot, giving off a thin haze as it did so.

“What...is it?” Jicker asked without taking his eyes off it.

“It’s called a node-“

“Powerstone!” Gabe shouted cutting her off.

“I discovered it and the game let me name it. It’s called a node now get over it.”

“You only discovered it because you beat me to it!”

Mary shrugged. “You shouldn’t have tripped then.”

“I ‘tripped’ over your foot! You cheated!”

“Sounds like a personal problem.”

“That’s it!”

Jicker continued to stare into the crystals depths, watching as the occasional flash of red light crackled through it. After a while, his reverie was broken by the commotion behind him. Turning he found that Mary had put Gabe in a headlock, who in turn was doing his best to throw her off.

“Are you two...family by any chance?” Jicker asked.

“He’s my little brother. How’d you guess?” She said as Gabe struggled against her.

“Just a hunch.”

“Anyway,” Mary said, releasing Gabe, “these nodes formed from all the left over energies thrown out by the upheaval. Since they’re nothing but a huge piece of solidified mana, they have a huge amount of uses. Our people have been keeping their ears out and we’ve already heard of some being put to use. Some have been carved into weapons, ground into potions or used to cast some insane magic. Whenever people get a hold of one of these, and know what they’re doing, it’s a game changer."

“That awesome, but what do you need me for exactly?”

“I’m getting to that. Our info is telling us that larger blasts were let off at key locations, including major cities. The one we care about at the moment is Ardenvale. Buried somewhere in that giant lump of rock is a node way bigger than this one, and if we’re going to succeed then we need to control it, or at least ensure no one else does.”

“I’m following you so far, but you still haven’t really explained why you need this stuff.” Jicker asked, getting frustrated with being drip fed information.

“It’s actually pretty simple. Before, we had plans of staking a claim in the wilderness and building a city that would let people practice whatever craft they chose to, assuming it didn’t hurt anyone else. But now countries are scrambling, militaries are a mess and everyone’s eyes are looking towards the nation’s borders. So instead of going out and building a city...”

Gabe threw his fists into the air. “We’re going to steal one!”

~~~~~~

As they headed back towards the main complex, Mary filled him in on a few more details. “So our biggest problem was going to be the churches of light. Most of our forces are undead, so their holy magic would tear us apart. But even more than most of the nodes, ours is primarily death energy. So some of our smarter people have been tinkering away and have aligned it to necromancy. When its turned on, necromancy and undead will get around a fifty percent increase in power while within three miles of it, while holy and healing magic will weaken by the same amount. It won’t be a guarantee or anything, but it will give us a huge advantage come fight time.”

“Why is it like that anyway? Death energy I mean.” Jicker asked.

She shrugged. “A lot of people died during the upheaval, more than pretty much every war here put together. That tainted all of the magic floating around, shifting it in that direction. It can be purified of course, but it’s easier for us to use it as is. We’re still trying to figure out the other traces inside of our node, but we should have it sorted by go time.”

“Poison.” Jicker mumbled absentmindedly, deep in thought about what he could do in Ardenvale.

“What was that?” Gabe said sharply.

“I...” he paused thinking quickly. He couldn’t remember all the explosives he’d used off the top of his head, but the forest stuck out because it had taken him some time to come up with one that wouldn’t destroy the trees as well. “I knew someone who had been hunting around here during the upheaval. They said that it was a giant cloud of deadly gas that killed every animal it touched before it got them as well.”

Mary nodded. “That theory came up in their think tank, but it’s good to get confirmation. Thanks I’ll pass it along. Speaking of info, we’ve got a decent sized library here, bigger than what’s currently left in the city. If there’s anything you want to find out before you head out, feel free to use it. It’s normally for guild members only, but at this point you’re in, just on a sort of super probation.”

He was going to politely refuse, before a thought struck him. “Now that you mention it, I’ve got a stat I haven’t heard of before. Do you have any information on enigma?” he asked, hoping he could keep his other stat hidden for now.

Gabe scratched his head. “I don’t think we’ve got anything in the library, but I'm pretty sure that’s the stat Oda has. When you see him later, he might be able to give you some advice.”

“Sure, I’d be happy to.” Said a familiar voice from behind.

Spinning around, the three of them were faced with a man wearing a suit of grey leather armour, casually leaning against the wall. With a sharply cut bead and black topknot, Jicker wondered how he hadn’t noticed him before.

“Damn it Oda! You almost gave me a heart attack! What are you doing here?” Mary shouted, clutching her chest.

Oda shrugged. “Following you guys.”

“Why?” she continued, struggling to regain her composure.

“Boredom mostly, but I’m also studying this little guy here.” He said, point at Jicker.

“Really? Anything interesting?” Gabe asked curiously. Oda waved a finger at him.

“I thought it was said earlier that it’s ok to have secrets. Just because I know things doesn’t mean I'm going to tell people. Anyway, is it about time I take Jicker back out?”

Mary nodded. “So Jicker, you understand what we’re asking you to do?”

Jicker nodded.

Ding!

Quest: The secret heart of the mountain

The Rising Moon as asked you to ensure the Ardenvale node remains unused until they claim it.

Success: The node remains unclaimed until the Rising Moons invasion or is claimed by the Rising Moon.

Failure: The node is claimed by another source.

They parted ways at one of the intersections, leaving him alone with Oda, who was staring at him intently as they walked.

“Is there something on my face?” Jicker asked jokingly, wondering what was going on.

“No, sorry if I’m being rude, but you’re just not what I expected of the evil Maser.” Oda said casually.

Jicker froze, wondering if he’d misheard, getting ready to log out and run. What had happened, what had given him away?

“Hey, relax.” Oda said, snapping his fingers in front of his face a few times. “Stress isn’t good for your health. Besides, I really don’t care and like I said before, your secrets safe with me.”

“I...I don’t...” Jicker stumbled, having been caught completely off guard.

Oda sighed and went to sit against the wall. “Okay, let’s just take a seat for a moment until you can get a grip. Now I take it by that reaction that I'm the first to spot you. Now it’s not too surprising, since I'm pretty high level, but surely you knew that people can see hidden information?”

Jicker's head whipped around to look at him. “What?”

Oda chuckled. “Ah, so you were more of a good guy, despite the whole upheaval thing. Well, the short of it is there’s a skill called True Sight, which is unlocked after you master Clear Vision, which you unlock if you master the Perception skill and have enough intelligence. Not easy to do, clearly, but it lets you see hidden information about characters. In addition to stuff like your characters name, health and buffs, at higher levels, I can also see skills, stats and achievements. This by the way was what gave it away, specifically that genocide one. I'm pretty sure I would have heard about someone else killing that many people.”

“And you...don’t care?” Jicker asked, having no idea what to do anymore.

“Eh, it’s interesting, but it’s also obvious why you’d want to keep that a secret. As for me, I had fun before you pulled the trigger, and I'm having even more fun now. I didn’t lose much in the upheaval, I'm well off both in game and real life, and while I really want to hear what you did, I can wait. Besides, you’re in the guild...ish, so it would be wrong for me to mess with you. But if you want to keep it hushed up, try and avoid people like me if you can.”

“And what sort of person is that?” he asked trying to grab on to any information to calm himself down.

“An assassin, which now that I say it out loud is obviously not what you want to hear.” He said wincing.

“An assassin.” Jicker said flatly.

Oda smiled. “Believe it or not, when I started, I wanted to be a samurai. The whole duelling, code of honour thing seemed great to me, I even picked my name for it. But after a few people came after me, unhappy with losing, I realised I was a lot better at killing than fighting. But I swear to you, I only killed people for money.”

“How does that make things better?”

Oda’s smile disappeared. “There are plenty of reasons people use to kill, and some of them are downright evil. I don’t claim be a good guy, in fact I'm probably one of the worst in the guild, but I’ve seen people do things in the name of justice that would make you vomit.” He hopped back to his feet. “Now, I need to take you back out to the forest, where I saw you do that thing with the plant. You’re going to need to be blinded while I do that again, it’s one of the hard and fast rules of the guild.”

“You saw me do that?” Jicker asked while Oda put a bag over his head, giving up on denying the smaller of his secrets.

“Yeah, it was neat. You didn’t see me however, because of my stealth skill, and more importantly, the enigma stat. I'm not a teacher, but I’ll try and explain it. Most people don’t use it because of the fame restriction, and because they can’t understand how to use it properly. It doesn’t make you invisible, or even any sneakier, but it sort of...puts you in people’s blind spot. It’s not that people don’t see you; it’s more that people don’t bother looking for you. If you try and interact with someone, you’ll get their attention easily enough, but unless you do something to get them to focus on you, you’ll find it easier to slip through without people caring. That’s how I bagged you the first time, despite your night vision and life sight potion, which the guild would probably buy from you by the way. Your senses picked me up, but your brain just filed me away under things that don’t matter. Does that make sense?”

You have learned the lessons of a master.

Enigma has increased by 1! Total: 4

“I think so, and the game agrees. Thanks for the tips.” Jicker said honestly.

“No problem. Now since we’ve got some time before we reach the exit, my turn to ask a few things, starting with evolution. I've seen a lot of people stats, but I haven’t come across that one.”

Spending a few minutes, Jicker explained how his abilities worked, about how he’d created Snuffles, the roaches and the silhouwolves. It felt good to just be able to talk about things for once, to not have to lie and hide all the information. It didn’t matter if Oda knew this stuff, since he already knew the big one.

“That’s some crazy stuff. So those wolves running around are all yours?” Oda asked when he was done.

“I wouldn’t say they’re mine, I don’t have any control over them. But they’re smarter than you’d think and they know who I am so they seem to be keeping an eye on me and at least giving me some respect.”

“Damn. An army of those guys would have been a big help during the attack.”

“You know, if you can find a way to communicate with Penumbra, their alpha, you might be able to recruit them. I don’t know what they’d want, but they’re smart enough to understand the idea of an alliance, him especially.”

“I’ll try and suggest that, but how do you want to play it? I can’t really say anything without revealing you made them.”

“Do you trust them?” Jicker asked.

“The whole guild? No, I haven’t even met a lot of them, but I’ll vouch for the leaders that you met.”

“Then you can tell them I suppose, and have them keep it a secret form the rest. We can figure something else out later I suppose, but for now I need to go investigate a mountain.”

“Right. My advice is to see if you can get a mining licence to go and have a look through the sections people have already opened. It won’t get you everywhere, but it’s a start.” Oda said as he pulled the bag off of Jicker's head.

“Thanks for the...advice.” He tried to say, only to find that the man had already disappeared. Looking around, he saw the spot where he’d buried his work, giving him a rough idea of where he was. At least finding his way out of the forest would be easier; all he had to do was pick a direction and commit.

~~~~~~

After stumbling along through the undergrowth for a few hours, he eventually made it out of the woods, and even came out on the right side of it. Again nothing had come after him while he’d walked, but he’d heard several growls and crashes around him, as the silhouwolves apparently resumed their watch over him.

By the time he made it back to the city gates the sun was going down, and he had push his way through the crowds going out to hunt in the forest tonight. As he did he heard snippets of conversations, mostly about their new plans for the wolves.

“...they fear fire, so as long you keep a torch lit...”

“...dead, so I've loaded up with holy water and...”

“...tomato sauce, to mask your scent from them and...”

Apparently people were still trying out different strategies to handle the new threat the silhouwolves posed, though by the sound of it they still had a long way to go. Stopping by a bakery to grab a bite to eat, he made his way up to the academy.

The grounds had mostly emptied out at this hour, people having gone home for the evening, or spending it hunting outside of town. He had no problem making his way to the green houses, and knocked on the door when he found them locked. After a few minutes Molta came to the door.

“Who’s bothering me now? It’s getting dark now, come back in the... Oh, it’s you. Come to say you’re giving up?” She said dismissively.

“I’m done if that’s what you mean, but I’d prefer to call it a success.”

She looked closer at him. “Have you now. Hmmm, in that case come in and let’s take a look.”

They returned to her lab where she took a seat, taking a sip from a cup sitting on her desk.

“You’ve already interrupted my evening, so let’s cut to the chase. Show me what you found.”

Jickertook off his pack and took out a few of the remaining incendiberries and told her the story he’d prepared earlier. “I couldn’t save the main plant since that cave was unstable and it began collapsing on me, but I managed to grab a few of the fruits from it. I didn’t recognise them, so I figured they were something interesting.”

She picked up one the berries gently and studied it. “With your vast knowledge of plants, I'd be surprised if you could tell wheat from barley. But in this case it looks like you’ve picked up something worth looking at. And you say the main plant was destroyed?” she asked while reaching for a notebook.

“Crushed by falling debris, sadly. I was too busy escaping to save it.”

“A pity, but this style of plant should have usable seeds inside the fruits, so I should be able to grow one. Did you get a look at its location? Light levels, soil types, that sort of thing?” she asked, holding a pencil at the ready.

Jicker rattled off what he could remember the adaptation menus saying as its preferred conditions, ensuring it was vague enough that she wouldn’t be suspicious. After finishing taking her notes she snapped her book shut and stood back up.

“This is...Interesting, as you said. In fact this could end up being quite the find, though it’ll be a few months until I'm able to say anything about it for sure.”

“Not to sound impatient, but we did agree to a reward if I found something...” Said Jicker, leaving the question hanging.

Molta snorted. “Trust you youngsters to put wealth before knowledge. But we did make a deal, and you’ve certainly than held up your end. So here, payment for your service.” Opening one of the drawers of her desk, she searched through for a moment before pulling out a satchel and throwing it him. Opening it, Jicker found it filled with gold.

Ding!

Quest: The cave of potential wonders. - Complete!

Reward: 2500 EXP, 1900 gold. Molta now trusts you.

You have reached level 15!

You have 5 points left unassigned. Assign points now?

He’d been hoping for a few hundred gold pieces, so he was shocked when he received the reward, even asking whether it was right pouch.

“Teaching pays better than you might think when you’re good at it, and I don’t have much to spend it on. And in return you’ve given me something to work on for sometime which, when you live as long as we elves do isn’t something to sneeze at. In fact... here, take this as a thank you. It’s an older copy but it hasn’t started being wrong yet.” She said, passing him a book from her table.

Molta’s study of common plants and their uses

Item type: book

Grade: uncommon

This book contains information collected by the herbalist Molta. Studying it can assist with the herbalism skill, as well as teach additional plant lore.

“Thank you, this will help a lot. And if we’re just being nice now, I’d be careful with those berries if I was you. When some got squashed in the cave in they tended to explode and burn.” He told her, putting the book away and throwing his pack back on.

“Really? How curious. I’ll make sure I have some water on hand when I begin studying them. Now see yourself out if you don’t mind, It seems I have work to do.”

Jicker had heard the phrase ‘a heavy purse make a light heart’ before, but he’d never realised how true it could be. He now had enough to ensure a roof over his head for several months, even with spending money on equipment and training. Or perhaps he’d go and see about getting one of those licenses’ Oda had mentioned. Either way, he decided to head to his room and get some rest. He had experience sorted out for now, and money had just been dealt with. Skills could be tomorrow’s problem, he decided, and went to bed.