Chapter 157: On The Surface

“Got him pretty easily. The Plashrim were very cooperative.” Herilon spoke to Quinn as he approached her in the Night Hunter’s guild hall.

“Where is he now?” Quinn asked him. Quinn was pacing in her office in front of a desk, while a Lizardfolk NPC sat in the chair behind it filling out paperwork for her. The office was simple, adorned with the Night Hunter banner on the walls and a dark purple carpet. Bookshelves sat flanking the banners on each of the four walls of the square room, loaded with hardcover books of various colors.

Herilon had just entered the office through a pair of dark wooden double doors that slowly swung shut behind him.

“Emerill’s in the Kordas Prison. His bounty was pretty high… Here’s the interesting thing about him, though.” Herilon paused to wait until Quinn stopped pacing and looked directly at him. “He only had two criminal bounties on him in Kalmoore. One for killing Rakkan, and the other for Lina. His other 12 bounties were all compliments of Savika, and the Kingdom of Arallia.” Herilon explained.

“So, he was from Arallia? Possibly a bandit player?”

“Maybe, that’d explain his grudge against Aegis.” Herilon shrugged. “But it doesn’t explain what he was doing down there. How did he know about our Underrealm entrance? It’s the only way he could’ve gotten to the Belmiure ruins. And why target Aegis instead of going after Savika? The guy has no bounty kills on NPCs.” Herilon asked.

“Good questions. Someone must’ve leaked info from our guild about our Underrealm entrance and our grind spots down there.” Quinn crossed her arms.

“We’ve got a spy?” Herilon asked.

“No, not likely. It’s probably one of the people who’ve been leaving recently. We just had Yolar quit the guild.” Quinn replied as she took a seat on top of her desk to look back at Herilon’s reaction.

“Hm.” He pulled his lips to the side. “It’s tough. They all watch Aegis’ stream and want to be like him, running around free without any responsibilities, leveling extremely fast…”

“They don’t appreciate how hard it is to play like that.” Trexon added as he suddenly appeared in the doorway of the office with Sapphire beside him. The two walked forward into the office to stand beside Herilon after having pushed the doors open.

“Yolar’s gonna go to the underrealm with a party of 5 to just die over and over. The only reason Aegis’ group is pulling it off is ‘cause his mom is a beast.” Sapphire shrugged. Trexon looked anxiously over to Sapphire and shook his head.

“Aegis’ class and its skills are what’s doing most of the work. Having a player that can tank, heal, kite, and give those powerful buffs is something else.” Trexon butted in.

“Eh, yeah, I guess.” Sapphire replied reluctantly.

“Whatever, what’s up? You guys didn’t come here to talk about Aegis, did you?” Quinn asked them.

“Nope, we got a report from the Kordas Military command.” Trexon turned to Quinn. “Blades are establishing multiple keeps along the southern end of the island. They bought up three neighboring plots of land and expanded them. They recently hired a large group of our Kordas NPC military to be employed in them.”

“And they didn’t think to run something like that by me first?” Quinn growled in an annoyed voice. “Why wasn’t I warned that the ratio of soldiers to citizens was dropping? We were barely keeping it at a minimum as it was.”

“Well, because the minimum threshold went down. Because our population dips. More of the NPCs have been moving to Rene, or Orm, or the Blades territories.”

“Don’t tell me Aegis is still doing that free housing bullshit…” Quinn rolled her eyes.

“Nope, he stopped, but he’s paying them, which is arguably worse.” Trexon replied.

“Alright.” Quinn stood up from the desk and paced a bit longer, before stopping and crossing her arms. “Rene’s a good frontier, and Aegis isn’t doing it maliciously, so we can ignore its growth. His merchant lead is still paying us full taxes and has actually increased the income of Kordas, regardless of how much of Kordas’ population he poaches. He’s still paying the bills of our bureaucratic guild members.” She paused to scratch her chin.

“The real problem is, what the hell is Christoph doing?” She added as she pondered it. “Where is he now?”

“He’s in the city, at the Faltrun Hall.” Sapphire replied.

“Artaphernes is there too.” Trexon added in a worried tone.

“That’s good. We can knock two birds out with one stone. I need to have a chat with him and his guild and find out what the hell is going on with this Simon and Emerill.” Quinn uncrossed her arms and looked over the four of them. “I’ll need you to come with me, Herilon, just in case they get any funny ideas.”

“Yes ma'am.” Herilon gave her a salute.

“You two are welcome to come as well.” Quinn looked at Trexon and Sapphire.

“I’ve got to help out Tullan with supply distribution. The citizen’s have become much more demanding lately, and quite angry when they don’t get what they want. It’s like Kalmoore is a completely different island, ever since that concert.” Trexon shook his head and sighed.

“You mean, since Aegis got famous?” Sapphire raised an eyebrow at him.

“We’re not going to blame this all on the kid. Let’s sort this out and keep this island from going to shit like all the others.” Quinn replied to her.

“If you can’t convince Artaphernes to knock out all of these elitists showing up, it might be a bit hard. But, yeah, I’ve got something to do.” Sapphire rolled her eyes.

“Really? It’d be a big help if you came with us to Faltrun Hall, you know Artaphernes’ got a thing for you.” Herilon asked her insistently.

“That’s…” Sapphire pulled a carrot out and bit into it loudly. “Exactly why I don’t want to go. That dude’s a creep.” She turned around and walked out of the office.

“Good luck.” Trexon bowed before following her. Quinn and Herilon exchanged shrugs before they walked side by side out of the office as well. Once the office was empty, the lizardfolk NPC stood up.

“Illusion, cancel.” The lizardfolk cast, removing his appearance to reveal Cheryl standing there, looking around. With hesitancy, she sighed and tapped her foot on the ground.

She nervously stood staring at the closed office doors, listening carefully for any sounds coming from the other side. After a few moments of listening, she heard the sound of footsteps approaching in the hall on the opposite side of the closed doors. Upon hearing the footsteps, she hopped in place to psych herself up while pulling out a carrot from her inventory and biting into it. With the carrot pieces in her mouth, her face twisted in disgust as she chewed it to smaller bits and forced it down.

“Avatar of Loki, Form: Sapphire.” She whispered as she heard the approaching footsteps reach the door, and saw the handles begin to open. A puff of silver and light blue smoke erupted from Cheryl’s body and faded a second later. Once it had disappeared it revealed that her body had transformed to look identical to Sapphire, including Sapphire’s equipment with the exception of the weapon.

The door swung open to the office to reveal the real Lizardfolk NPC standing there. He looked absentmindedly at Cheryl in her Sapphire form, then without a word kept forward, walking around Cheryl to get to the chair behind the desk in the office, and sat in it.

Cheryl, too, ignored the non-elite NPC, and walked out of the office, shutting the doors behind her. She then quickly rushed forward through the hallways of the Night Hunter’s guildhall to catch up with Herilon and Quinn, only doing so as they stepped out of the front doors of the guildhall and headed out into the streets of Kordas.

“Wait up!” Cheryl called out as she caught up to them.

“Change your mind?” Quinn looked at who she believed to be Sapphire.

“Yeah, figured if you need anything from Artaphernes, it’s better if I’m there.” Cheryl shrugged while forcing herself to take a bite of the carrot in her hand.

“Thanks. I appreciate it.” Quinn smiled before continuing forward. Quinn, Cheryl and Herilon made their way through the streets of Kordas until arriving in the busy part of the city, where they stopped in front of a large wooden building with no windows on the outside, and a sign hanging above the entrance over the street with two dice carved into it.

“Stay alert, and follow my lead.” Quinn said to Herilon and Cheryl, and they both nodded back before Quinn opened the door to the building and the three walked inside.

The interior was not unlike a typical tavern floor. There was no natural lighting, only torches bolted intermittently on the walls and pillars, giving the building a dark orange hue.

In addition, thanks to poor ventilation through lack of windows, there was a smog of gray smoke that was ever present. The place was packed full of patrons drinking ale from mugs, and smoking from pipes that contributed to the smog.

Round tables dotted the floor surrounded by chairs full of primarily players, but some elite NPCs as well. Each table had a dealer with cards, shuffling them, and players holding hands of cards or watching. From a quick glance it was obvious to Quinn that they were playing variations of poker and blackjack at the tables around the room, and they were betting colorful wooden chips rather than handling raw gold coins at the tables.

Across the way there was a bar, and traveling amongst the tables were waitresses carrying trays of drinks and food and wearing very un-fantasy like french maid outfits.

Immediately upon entry, flanking their left and right, stood two high level 150 players with their arms crossed, wearing very expensive looking equipment. The players eyed Quinn, Herilon and Sapphire cautiously as Quinn panned around the room looking for Christoph and Artaphernes.

It didn’t take long for her to spot them, and she made her way across the floor with Herilon and Cheryl behind her until they arrived at the table.

“Ah, Quinn, wasn’t expecting to see you here.” Artaphernes looked up from his hand of cards to smile at her, Herilon, and Quinn. This caused Christoph to look up from his cards as well and look at her curiously.

[Artaphernes - Level 150] had short messy brown hair, a young human character with bright green eyes, a chiseled jawline, and broad shoulders, with a spear leaning up against the back of his chair implying his class to be a Dragoon. He wore high level black leather armor, and a tabard with a single white dice embroidered on the front of it.

“To what do I owe the pleasure?” He asked playfully.

“I’d like to have a chat with you and Christoph, once you finish that hand.” Quinn motioned to their game, and he nodded back.

“That’s fine, I’m up enough as it is. I fold.” He tossed his cards down on the table.

“Finally.” Christoph sighed with relief as he pulled the pot at the center of the table towards his end. The other two players at the table, who had already folded the hand, immediately started packing up their chips and stood up, walking away. While they did this, Artaphernes gave a nod to the dealer, and he collected the cards before also leaving the table.

“Please, have a seat.” Artaphernes motioned them all to sit down, and they did exactly that.

“If you all like gambling so much, why not just go to a gambling simulation?” Herilon commented as he sat down at the table.

“Because in a gambling simulation, if I lose, I can’t just use my spear to kill the other guy.” Artaphernes chuckled with a mischievous smile. “What would you like to chat about?”

“First, him.” Quinn pointed at Christoph. “Why’d you buy up all of those soldiers?” Quinn asked suspiciously.

“Who told you I did?” Christoph replied defensively once he’d finished adding the chips to his inventory.

“Trexon informed me.” Quinn replied.

“Trexon’s got it wrong.” Christoph shook his head. “They defected on their own. Their commander had someone whispering in his ear about the adventures outside the city, and it grew his AI’s desire to explore and battle great monsters on a new frontier. They came to me, asking to work in my land because of the dangerous territory surrounding it.” Christoph shrugged.

“Really?” Quinn squinted at him suspiciously.

“I’ve got no reason to lie.” Christoph replied.

“Is it really so bad to live in Kordas?” Quinn pondered as she thought to herself.

“The NPCs seem to think so…” Christoph commented.

“Or at least, there’s someone convincing them that it is.” Artaphernes jumped in with a serious look at Quinn.

“Do you know something?” Quinn asked him.

“Nothing concrete.” Artaphernes shrugged. “But I do know that Makaroth and Feng’s Airships are on their way here, and a few of the old bandit players have weaseled their way onboard.”

“What about Emerill and Simon?” Quinn asked.

“Emerill was not in any bandit guilds in Arallia, in fact, the players he had bounties for killing were members of the bandit guilds. I don’t think he’s friends with them.” Artaphernes answered. “As for Simon, he’s dangerous.”

“How dangerous?” Herilon asked with a spark of excitement in his eyes.

“I’ve never seen a player with a bounty sheet like his. He’s wanted on every island, with over 1000 player and NPC kills. He’s never been caught. If he does get caught, he’ll be better off deleting his character and rerolling for how long he’ll be stuck in jail.” Artaphernes smirked.

“Emerill’s suspicious. His behavior is odd. Could you have one of your members trail him when he’s out of Kordas jail in two weeks?”

“I’ll have my hands full keeping track of the guys coming in on the airships.” Artaphernes sighed.

“I’ll spare some members to help out and make sure they don’t do anything.” Christoph offered.

“Very well. I’ll get someone on Emerill.” Artaphernes replied reluctantly.

“Good.” Quinn nodded with a smile. “If you find any information on Simon and whether he’s still on the island or not, let me know. We don’t know what class he is, but we should group up before trying to take him on.”

“Yes ma'am.” Artaphernes smiled at her. “It’s hard work, keeping this Island peaceful, huh?” He added mockingly.

“Yeah, but don’t complain like you aren’t reaping the benefits from it.” Quinn sighed as she stood up from the table with a bow, Herilon and Cheryl following suit.

“If I didn’t appreciate your hard work, I wouldn’t be helping you for free.” Artaphernes replied as he stood up and bowed as well, as did Christoph. The two watched as Quinn left the building with her two guildmates.

“You really think you’ve got members good enough to PvP against high level bandit players?” Artaphernes asked Christoph.

“Yeah, I’ve got some. I’ll do it personally if I have to. Gotta help Quinn out. She’s been stressed out lately by all the uptick in PvP activity and the demanding NPCs.” Christoph replied.

“Good. The two big streamers have arranged that their Airships will arrive at the same time. They’ll be making a big show out of it and bringing with them royalty. They’re planning on meeting the King of Kalmoore, but their primary reason for coming here is to escort their Shattered Healer players to the Monastery of the Stars for their class quest.”

“I got it. I’ll be fine, don’t worry.” Christoph assured him while Artaphernes looked at him with a skeptical, raised eyebrow. Christoph brushed off the stare by waving at Artaphernes before leaving him alone at the table. Once alone, Artaphernes sat back down and motioned the dealer and other players to come sit back down with him.

Once they had, he glanced around the room until he spotted a player in dark leather leaning up against a wall in a torchless section of the tavern floor, and snapped his fingers in their direction while the dealer pulled out cards and began shuffling them.

From the shadows, a short female human with sheathed daggers on her belt walked forward. Her dark high level leather was form fitting, but she wore a black cloak with the hood down that covered most of her body. She had long blonde hair that was tied into a low hanging ponytail that sat on her right shoulder and ran down her front, with bright green eyes and pale white skin. [Anazia - Level 150] sat above her head. Once she reached the table, she moved to stand behind Artaphernes and remained silent, waiting patiently as Artaphernes was dealt two cards face down on the table.

He carefully peaked at the cards without picking them up off the table by bending the tops of them upwards, then glanced at his opponents and sighed.

“I’ve got a job for you.” Artaphernes spoke without turning to look at Anazia.

“Details?” She replied back

“Two weeks from now, Emerill will be let out of prison. See what he does in the Kordas Prison, give me a sense of what type of player he is. Once he’s free, don’t let him out of your sight.” Artaphernes replied.

“Babysitting? You’re taking me off the bandits and those big shot streamers that are coming here?” Anazia replied with skepticism.

“Yeah.”

“What’s the pay?”

“30 000 gold a day.”

“Really?” Anazia answered in disbelief. “All this just to help out Quinn? What if he’s really just an idiot who likes to PK low level players?” Anazia asked.

“You know better than I do that that’s unlikely. Someone, or something, is making waves in Kalmoore.” Artaphernes replied before giving a nod to the dealer to signal that he was checking. “Waves are bad for business. Peace-loving whales come to Kalmoore to spend their gold and feel safe that they won't lose their investments into their virtual property. If Kalmoore loses its peaceful reputation, we lose our wealthy whale players and our comfortable income.”

“I understand.” Anazia replied obediently.

“Good. I’ve got a feeling Quinn is really going to need our help this time, so don’t mess up.” Artaphernes replied.

“I can handle one Assassin player.” Anazia replied confidently.

“You sure? Did you watch the streaming footage from Aegis where they beat him?” Artaphernes asked her.

“Yes.”

“And, did you notice anything strange?” Artaphernes asked.

“Yes. He let them beat him on purpose.”

“Exactly.” Artaphernes watched as the dealer dealt the flop, and checked his hand again. “He wanted to end up in that prison. Find out why. No mistakes.” Artaphernes replied.

“I’m on it.” Anazia finished the conversation. After these words, she turned from the table and headed out of the tavern.

“Can we really trust those two?” Cheryl, still in her Sapphire form, asked Quinn and Herilon as the three arrived back at the Night Hunter’s guild hall in Kordas. They hadn’t gone inside yet, but rather stopped in front of the closed entry doors, looking around and confirming that no other NPCs or players were anywhere in sight in this empty section of the city.

“Yeah, Artaphernes’ likes the money he gets from Kalmoore too much to not help me out when I ask. And Christoph hates the bureaucratic aspects of this game enough that he’d do anything to make sure that our guild keeps running things, so he doesn’t have to.” Quinn replied.

“What’re we going to do about Aegis?” Herilon asked as he eyed Quinn anxiously. “Are you going to tell him that Feng and Makaroth are arriving here soon because they trained up some Eirene priests to become Shattered Healers?”

“No.” Quinn shook her head. “It’s better we don’t tell him his dad is coming here, it’d only piss him off. According to what he said on stream, he and his party will be grinding for the next five weeks in the underrealm anyway. So let’s leave it at ignorance is bliss.” Quinn shrugged, but paused as she saw a strange look of shock on Sapphire’s face.

Cheryl noticed her staring at her and quickly covered up her shocked expression by biting into her carrot.

“Don’t you think he’s going to want to meet Aegis?” Sapphire replied, somewhat flustered.

“Nah, you said it yourself that you heard Aegis say they hated each other, right?” Herilon shrugged at her. “What with that bet that if Aegis overtakes him, he’ll delete his character.”

“Oh. Right, yeah. That’s true.” Sapphire replied hesitantly. “Still, maybe they’ll want to meet.”

“I’ll deal with that if it comes up.” Quinn replied before letting out a reluctant sigh. “Okay, time to sort out these whiny NPCs and try to get Kalmoore back to normal. See you two around.” She waved before heading inside the guild hall.

“Right, I’m going to go shopping really quick, I’ll be back later.” Sapphire waved and left Herilon as she made her way down the streets of Kordas away from the guildhall. Cheryl nervously glanced at the duration of her Avatar spell ticking down, with only 9 minutes remaining on it, and hastily looked around the nearby buildings for a dark alleyway.

Once she’d spotted one, she carefully looked around to make sure no one was around to see her, then stepped into the alley and canceled the spell, returning to her normal form and putting the half-eaten carrot back in her inventory. She then hastily opened up her friends list and began writing a message to several players.

“They’re onto you Emerill, you’ll be watched.” She sent a message to Emerill on her friends list.

“Quinn and Christoph are still getting along. We need a point of failure in their friendship or they won’t stop playing nice.” She sent the message to Quiver. “Try Ren, her little brother.” She added in a second message.

“They know about the bandit players coming in on the Airships. You’ll need to get creative. Blades and Artaphernes’ guild will be watching them.” She sent the message to a player named Joltblade.

“I learned something interesting about Aegis and Makaroth.” Cheryl wrote to a fourth, unknown player.