Chapter 160: In Motion

“My guys have checked Kordas and the surrounding towns, there’s no sign of them anywhere.” Artaphernes said to Quinn and Christoph. The three were standing around inside Quinn’s office within the Night Hunter’s guild hall. “How’d they get by you? It was your best members, right?”

“They don’t have any PvP experience. It’s hard to get any on this island.” Christoph scoffed back at him.

“That used to be a good thing.” Quinn sighed.

“Still, that Simon is no joke. He took out most of us by himself.” Christoph added.

“Is that your professional, inexperienced-in-PvP opinion?” Artaphernes rolled his eyes back at him. “I’m sure my guys would be able to take him out, but we need to know where they went.”

“Well, I don’t know.” Christoph replied angrily.

“Not a hint? A clue? Did you see anything useful?” Quinn asked him calmly.

“No. Speaking of useful…” Christoph turned to her. “Why even keep the portal altar open? Did you not think they’d try something like this? Is it such a disturbance to your peaceful land to shut it off for a few hours?”

“You said you had it covered.” Artaphernes replied on Quinn’s behalf.

“It doesn’t matter now, what happened, happened. Getting angry at each other isn’t going to change anything.” Quinn stepped in. The two exchanged looks of frustration for a moment before breaking eye contact and taking a pause. After a short moment to let them cool off, Quinn stepped forward.

“So we’ve got members of a law-breaking, PvP happy guild now running around on our island. Not to mention a strange behaving ganking Assassin, and that Simon player with a bounty high enough to buy me a small piece of land in the real world.”

“NPCs are going to start dying. The players enjoying their peaceful life on this island isn’t going to last. Even if we find them and start catching them, it likely won’t be until after they’ve caused more damage.”

“Still have to try. I can issue bounties for them thanks to what they did at the portal altar, so that’s a start.” Quinn tapped her feet as she pondered. “That oughta inconvenience them. If everyone in Kalmoore is looking for them, it’s only a matter of time before we figure out where they’re hiding.”

“And then what?” Christoph replied. “The bounties will imprison them for a bit, sure, but-”

“I’ll utilize the King’s authority to banish the leader from the island once he’s caught. Without the guild leader, the rest won’t be much of a threat. Even with the skill's massive cost and cooldown, it should do the trick.”

“So, the plan is to find the leader and banish him, then imprison the other law breakers as efficiently and effectively as possible, to discourage their bad behavior?” Artaphernes asked.

“Correct. They’ve already been imprisoned before on Lanusk and Savringard, which means the duration for future crimes will be increased on them, and keep increasing with each subsequent capture. If we stick to them, they’ll have no choice but to stop, leave our island, or reroll their characters.” Quinn nodded at the others.

“Right, but there’s the issue of finding them, before they cause any major damage.” Christoph commented

“They must’ve come here for a reason. This was planned.” Artaphernes replied.

“The most likely target is Savika, for revenge. It’s possible the bandit players hired Simon and sent him here ahead of time to help them execute this plan.” Quinn said.

“That’d explain Simon’s behavior, he plays like one of those professional mercenary players that takes real money contracts. Otherwise his actions make no sense. But still, for the bandits to hire someone like that just to get on this island would mean they hold a pretty big grudge against Aegis and Savika.”

“Yeah… Well, he did embarrass them on a stream in front of millions of viewers.” Christoph sighed.

“So did I, and Herilon, so I’m as much to blame as Aegis is.” Quinn shook her head. “I don’t regret it. Bad players were going to find their way here eventually anyway. We can handle this.”

“Well, we can’t just drop everything and have all of our members scouring the island for them. I’ve got a guild raid planned in the east. We want to level up and get new gear too, not just hunt down bounties all day.” Christoph replied.

“I’ve got all my bounty hunter, scout and assassin class players searching for them. They gain bonus experience and gold for killing or capturing wanted players, so they don’t mind. But they might not be enough.” Artaphernes shrugged.

“I…” Quinn paused. “We have a guild raid scheduled as well, to start leveling up our members, due to start right now.”

“Well that’s nice. We get invaded by a PvP hungry guild, and both our number 1 and number 2 head off to grind in dungeons and leave all the work to me?” Artaphernes huffed at the two of them.

“If I try to cancel, our members will be pissed off. They’re already slowly bleeding, wanting to play more like Aegis as he levels freely without having to worry about any of this.” Quinn replied.

“Then, tell Aegis to hunt them down. It’s his fault they’re here anyway, isn’t it? They’re going after Savika, she’s in his land.” Artaphernes answered her impatiently.

“No, I think it’s in our best interest to let him get stronger.” Quinn resisted.

“Are you kidding me? You’re perfectly fine ordering us around to protect Kalmoore, but the one drawing enemies to our doorstep gets to keep playing PvE champion all day?” Christoph groaned at her.

“We all agreed to keep Kalmoore peaceful together. We’ve all benefited from it. He’s not a part of that agreement. You guys put me in charge because you trusted my judgment, so just trust my judgment.” Quinn crossed her arms and glared at the two of them. It fell silent once more for a moment as Artaphernes and Christoph glanced at each other nervously, startled from Quinn’s rare angry tone.

“Portal altars. I want one built in all of your territories. Both of you. Establish a watching rotation of players so that the moment any bandit player makes any move on any settlement on this island, all three of us hear about it. I’ll have Trexon and Tullan craft a batch of Silence-immunity rings for the watchers to wear, so we don’t have any repeats of what happened yesterday.”

“Wherever and whenever you go somewhere, you bring a sage with you carrying enough portal dust to portal you where you need to be. When they act, they’ll be ready, but we can’t sit around waiting and searching, we need to keep leveling up ourselves. People in our guilds play this game to have fun, too.” Quinn finished in a calmer tone than what she started out with.

“Understood.” Artaphernes replied.

“Got it.” Christoph replied.

“I’ll send some of the Royal Knights to guard Savika. They should, if she’s attacked, buy enough time for us to arrive and help her out. They have skills that allow them to redirect damage onto themselves, so no instant sneak attack kills will work on her. I’ll also keep a rotation of my players in Rene. That’s how we’ll handle this mess.”

“What if they go after Aegis?” Christoph asked.

“He’ll just have to handle it by himself.” Quinn replied. “What about Emerill?”

“He’s just hanging around Kordas, traveling between temples, taverns and brothels. My best bounty hunter player is on him, she doesn’t miss a beat. If he tries anything, she’ll catch it.” Artaphernes replied.

“Good. Communication is the key here - if any of you have any updates, anything at all, then share it. Good luck guys.” Quinn said with a tone of finality. Artaphernes and Christoph both nodded politely to her before turning and leaving her alone in the Night Hunter office.

Once by herself, she sat on the front of her desk, looked up at the ceiling and let out a long sigh of frustration. She remained like this for a good long while before waving her hands in front of her face to open up her guild interface. In it, she saw messages from Trexon informing her that the guild was making their final preparations for the upcoming raid, and numerous excited messages from various members eager to get started.

She waved them off and went into her friends interface and saw a message blinking from Herilon and quickly opened it.

“Got a moment?” Herilon asked.

“Yeah. Is everything okay in Rene?”

“Yep. Too bad I was here instead of in Kordas.” Herilon replied.

“What’s up?”

“It’s the NPCs here in Rene. I’ve been watching them complain to Savika for the past week while guarding her. No matter what she does, they come back and complain about something new.”

So? That’s been happening here in Kordas as well, hasn’t it? It’s not special.”

“Yeah, except, the complaints they have are sometimes very personalized, but none of the complainers have been elite. And the complaining started in Kordas, just after the concert from Yumily. It started here in Rene around that time too, more specifically after Aegis headed to the underrealm.” Herilon explained.

“Hm.” Quinn pondered out loud as she scratched her chin.

“Do they have any debuffs on them?”

“No. When I ask them about it, they act strange and stop talking. It might be player interference.” Herilon suggested.

“Could be, or just NPCs being dumb NPCs.” Quinn replied. “Thanks for letting me know, we’ll have to look into it later. We’ve got bigger problems now, though. I’m sending Royal Knights to Rene to replace you. Once they arrive, come join us and lets get some experience.”

“Yes ma’am.” Herilon answered back.

Once Quinn saw his reply, she closed out of her interface and moved around her desk to sit in the chair. Once seated she eyed a number of documents on her table containing information about the killed Kordas guards. She found herself staring blankly at them as all emotion left her face, and she stopped blinking.

After a moment of this, she suddenly shouted out loud, angrily, while simultaneously forking her fingers into her hair and squeezing her head. Tears began to swell up in her eyes as she started breathing heavily.

“Sis?” Ren spoke worriedly. Quinn looked up and saw him standing in the doorway with a look of concern - she hadn’t noticed that he had opened the door and was watching her.

“Huh? Yeah?” She quickly fixed her face and put on a smile, wiping the water from her eyes.

“Is everything okay?” Ren asked as he shut the door behind himself. “We’re all about ready to go on the raid.”

“Yeah, yeah. Everything is okay.” She smiled and stood up. It was clear to her though that Ren wasn’t buying it, he continued to stare with his worried expression.

“Maybe you could stop all this leadership stuff? You aren’t having fun. We could have more fun just playing the game, only the two of us, right?” Ren suggested.

“I can’t.” She pulled her lips in for a moment. “The gold we get from Kordas due to our position is the only thing paying our bills right now. Don’t worry about me, I promised I’d take care of everything right?” She continued her forced smile.

“What if we become streamers? Or maybe we can hunt down rare materials and sell them. You know? That’s how Aegis doe-” Ren started.

“STOP. Stop talking about that kid. I’m so tired of everyone comparing everything to what he is doing. I get it. He’s great, he’s famous now, and he’s discovered voidsilk.” She snapped at Ren, breaking her forced smile and shocking him. Seeing his reaction, she took a deep breath and tried to calm back down. “Look, he wouldn’t be able to do what he’s doing if it wasn’t for our guild and what we’ve done for Kalmoore. Our jobs are important, not just for us but for all of the players on this island.”

“I know…” Ren replied timidly.

“Are you not having fun anymore?”

“N…no, I am. It’s just, I was worried about you.” Ren put his head down and looked at his feet. While Quinn shook her head and sighed.

“Stop worrying about me, I’m fine. This is nothing. When I was younger, I was one of the bad players causing all the trouble. These bandit’s got nothing on me.” Quinn smirked.

“Really? You were a PKer? In other games you played?”

“Yep. I hunted down people like you and Aegis for sport, stole all their items and put ‘em up for sale.” She grinned mischievously.

“Why’d you stop? We could do that here too? Right?” Ren adopted her mischievous smile.

“No, no. I stopped to set a good example for my lil bro. I promised I’d take care of you, right? We’re the good guys now.” Quinn walked around her desk and ruffled his hair.

“Yeah but that’s boring, and it seems so stressful. And no one appreciates us.” Ren pouted.

“I know, I know. Being good and following the rules, maintaining order - it’s not flashy or exciting like going to Hrath’mir or battling a Mosmir hive as a party of 5. It’s also not as rewarding as robbing a king of his crown and selling it for millions of gold, but.” Quinn paused and raised her index finger in front of Ren’s eyes. “Trust me, in the long run, it is much more rewarding. You will see - once all this bandit stuff is sorted out, who is enjoying the game more still. Us, the good guys, or them, the bad guys, who get banished and jailed.”

“Okay.” Ren nodded hesitantly. “So we’re going to catch them all?”

“Yeah. Eventually. But first, we’ve got a raid to join.” She smiled back, for the first time not needing to force it as she saw Ren grow a big dumb smile on his face.

“Okay, let’s go!” He cheered excitedly as he grabbed her arm and began tugging her out of the office.

Three weeks later…

Eli stepped out of the bathroom, freshly showered with a towel around his waist and a toothbrush in his hand, walking through the house. He was drawn to something interesting he’d heard on the television and made his way to the living room while brushing.

There, he saw Jillian sitting on the couch, eating a sandwich and watching a news broadcast.

“There’s only 5 in-game weeks remaining before the presumed cooldown for Island invasions is up. The top guilds of every island are all on edge, anticipating the darkness to arrive, and have been bolstering up their defenses.” One of the broadcasters spoke while talking over footage from Aegis’ live stream during the Arallian invasion.

“It’s all just assumptions. No one actually knows if there is a cooldown on the invasions at all, right? They could come sooner, or never again at all. Now that the Harbinger of Darkness has received his advanced class, perhaps he’s lost all motivation to incur further invasions.” The other broadcaster spoke.

“What do you think? You think we’ll see another one of those invasions?” Eli asked Jillian.

“Yep. Players that do stuff like that aren’t doing it for quests. I imagine they’re making a lot of money, stealing everything left behind on the broken islands and selling it. I saw another report covering the sale of many old Arallian relics on the black market, including the King’s crown. They made bank.” Jillain replied with a mouthful of her sandwich.

“Maybe we should sink an island.” Aegis smirked.

“Yeah, right. I can imagine you being a bad guy just about as much as you can imagine me dying my hair pink again.” She shook her head dismissively. Aegis face suddenly twisted oddly and he began coughing on his toothpaste, causing Jillian to give him a strange look. “You okay?”

“Ye-yeah.” He cleared his throat up. As he did, he spotted a package sitting on top of his Simbox. “What’s that?”

“Your early gift. I told you I’d get you something. I know it’s awhile still until your birthday, but…” Jillian shrugged innocently. “You should open it so you can put it on before we hop back in the simulation.” She motioned him forward towards the plain flat delivery box.

Eli went to the bathroom to quickly spit out his toothpaste and rinse, then curiously returned to the living room and grabbed the box.

Jillian, having finished her sandwich, stood up from the couch and flicked the television off using her wrist implant, then eagerly watched Eli as he began peeling back the tape sealing the box shut.

Once opened, he looked inside to see a dark black rubbery leather suit with purple and silver accents. It was wrapped in plastic, but he ripped it open so that he could unfold the jumpsuit and saw it was sized to fit him perfectly.

“A jump suit?” Eli eyed her over it skeptically.

“No, no, not just any jumpsuit. It’s a Simulation suit. It enhances your immersion into the simulations and helps improve reaction time. It also helps maintain your bodily functions in the real world, preventing things like atrophy. Look.” She pointed at a socket on the feet of the suit. “Our fancy Simboxes come with a place to plug your foot in when you’re in simulation, to utilize the suit.” She then walked over to Eli’s open Simbox and pointed down at where his feet would normally rest, and sure enough there were plugs there that matched the sockets on the feet.

“Cool, I guess…” Eli replied hesitantly.

“Oh, trust me, you’ll think it’s cool once you try it out for a bit. I’ve seen a lot of people positively reviewing these suits.” Jillian nodded back at him. “C’mon, put it on.”

“What about you, though? It sounds like you’d like this more than me.” Eli eyed her curiously.

“I got mine too, of course.” She smirked as she pulled a box out from beside the couch that she’d hidden from his view. “Figured you wouldn’t use it if I didn’t use it as well. I’ll get changed as well.” She rushed off towards the bathroom with her box. A few moments later, she returned, and Eli had put on his suit. The two of them stood in the living room eying each other in their strange jumpsuits.

“We look so stupid.” Eli shook his head in disbelief.

“No way, are you kidding me? We look awesome. Like high tech, futuristic space suits, or something. I love it.” Jillian proudly spun around to show it off. Eli just rolled his eyes at her.

“I feel like a banana that hasn’t been peeled yet.” Eli grumbled.

“Oh come on, it’s not that bad.” She shook her head at him. “Let’s plug ourselves in and play.”

“Plug ourselves in?” Eli replied mockingly.

“You know what I mean.” Jillian wiggled her feet. “We’re finally done grinding, aren’t we? It’s the perfect time to test them out, with a great new adventure into the underrealm!” She cheered with enthusiasm as she climbed into her Simbox and shut it.

Eli moved to his Simbox and sat down, staring down at his feet for a moment as he awkwardly lined up his heels with the sockets with the plugs on the Simbox, until he felt them magnetize into position by themselves slightly and make a clicking sound.

Once it had clicked, small lights on his suit began to glow purple and silver, and he found himself staring at the suit in disbelief.

“This is so lame.” he sighed before tilting his head back and closing the Simbox, beginning the Shattered World simulation.