Chapter 248: The Deception

Aegis and his companions spend the entire afternoon at the Kordas Training hall. Rather than utilize any of the facilities, they insead repeatedly sparred with one another on the open sections of the grounds. Pyri showed off to the group several of her new spell combinations, but admittedly held back some from the stream that Aegis was broadcasting.

His viewership held steady at just under 2 million, while Cheryl did her best to practice her ‘shadow’ skills, though very obviously was nowhere near as skilled as Lina was. Aegis had to hope that no one watching his stream was looking skeptically at her movements - after all, they’d have no reason to suspect that she wasn’t the real Lina, and that was what they were counting on. It was particularly important that Aegis’ viewers didn’t scrutinize because of Cheryl’s lack of modesty when it came to attempting to act out being Aegis’ girlfriend, though Aegis was careful to not be too cold towards her overly forward nature.

They were all relieved when Aegis got a message from Finley four hours later, stating that Lina was done and they were ready for the next member.

Aegis carefully manipulated his positioning and camera visibility to allow for Pyri to leave, the real Lina to return, and Cheryl to change her avatar appearance into Pyri’s. The switch happened smoothly, and off camera, but very quickly so that no one would possibly expect that anything had happened.

With real Lina present, Aegis felt a lot more comfortable, and in between sparring with Rakkan, Herilon, and Darkshot, he found a moment where he could pull Lina off to the side and mute his stream.

“How was it?”

“I’m qualified. It wasn’t easy, but Finley is right. It’s better we don’t talk about it, his method is really easy to sabotage.” Lina explained quickly and quietly. Aegis nodded back at her before quickly unmuting his stream and going back to sparring.

Makaroth sat in the Meeting Chamber of the Sages of Paradigm’s guild hall, far off on the island of Savringard, several long hours after Aegis and Finley had begun the execution of their plan. Sitting with him were the many other officers of his guild, as well as several low level unguilded players. The hall itself was luxurious, decorated with golden dragon statues lining the round walls intermittently. The table had a beautiful centerpiece of living, wriggling flowers of a variety of colors sitting in a silver vase. Their movements were slow so that you’d only notice them moving if staring directly at them, but once caught, your gaze was hard to remove from them.

Heavily armored players with glows emitting from pauldrons, hilts, helmets and capes were all that sat present here at this found table, and they were all deep in discussion about the upcoming event.

“Remember, it’s unlikely we’ll be able to beat Seraxus. It’d be nice if you could,” Makaroth spoke directly to Synopse who sat across from him. “But if you can’t, we’ve got a deal with them to at least let the matches be close, and push it to the 5th round of the best of five. That’ll keep everyone on the edge of their seats.”

“Also extend the viewership time on the event, allowing for more ad space.” One of the unguilded players commented, revealing a VGN logo stitched onto their simple leather armor.

“So you’re saying if I can’t beat him, at least I should put on a good show?” Synopse glared at Makaroth, and he picked up on this hint of aggression.

“I’m not saying I don’t believe you’ll win. You’re the best PvPer we have in this guild, and your team looks promising. I’m just saying it for the just-in-case scenario.” Makaroth spoke in a friendly tone. “I’ve got full faith in your abilities as a Chronomage, especially with that artifact staff. In fact, we might as well give the reverse warning - don’t stomp him too hard in 3 rounds. A clean sweep would be a bit sad.” Makaroth laughed, prompting other officers present in the room to laugh along with him, including his wife Lilya.

“Right.” Synpose nodded back hesitantly.

“Unfortunately, there’s no way for us to arrange the brackets in our favor. The game is designed in a way that all those who make it past preliminaries are placed into the top 16 bracket randomly. We’ll just have to hope for favorable matchups. A battle against Feng’s guild, the Korean guild Ev.xO or the Spanish guild Sin Eaters would all bring in great viewership numbers. The only extremely disappointing outcome would be if our big showdown happens in the first round.” The VGN employee chimed in again.

“Ah, well, we’ll just have to hope for the best.” Makaroth shrugged. “And what about Yumily?”

“Yes, Yumily will be performing a concert at the arena before the matches begin. She’s already scheduled to perform, we’re just waiting for the location of the tournament to be announced. That is also random, we won’t know until the preliminary rounds are concluded in 6 days.” The employee replied.

“Right. With Yumily there, that’ll put all of the world's eyes on the tournament. Everyone who matters will show up for the big day.” Makaroth smirked proudly to himself, getting big smiles from his officers across the room. “We aren’t going to have any expected guests, right?” He turned once more to the VGN employee.

“Hm. Nope, as it is…” The employee began fidgeting around in their interface for a long few moments. “The registration for all qualifying smaller tournaments are still locked up until after the date of the tournament. There’s no gladiator points registered to the Player Aegis from Kalmoore.” The employee clarified.

“Good.”

“Kinda mean to block him like this, dontcha think?” Another officer in the room chimed him, which got a few chuckles from the others.

“He needs to learn some respect, and words don’t really reach his ears.” Makaroth replied dismissively. “With his attitude, he’d ruin the vibe and mood of the whole tournament anyway. It’s two birds with one stone, really. He’ll learn his place, and we’ll ensure we put on the greatest show any viewer of the Shattered World has ever seen.” Makaroth smiled.

“It’s going to be so epic!” Lilya cheered excitedly, followed by several other cheers.

“Wait… that’s odd…” The VGN employee was still fidgeting around with their interface, scrunching their eyebrows in confusion at what they were looking at.

“What’s odd?” Synopse asked curiously.

“Well, Aegis has no points, but… three of his party members have enough to participate…”

“Heh?” Makaroth’s eyes went wide.

“Which ones?” Synopse asked.

“Looks like… Lina, Pyri, and Rakkan.” The employee explained.

“How?” Lilya asked with a hint of worry in her voice.

“I’m not sure…” The VGN employee responded anxiously.

“I thought you said all of the 3v3 matches were booked up?” Makaroth confirmed.

“They were. They are. There’s no way they participated and won two three vs three tournaments.” He answered quickly.

“Pull up his livestream.” Makaroth ordered one of the other officers present. He quickly fidgeted with his own interface, until a guild hall display screen appeared floating above the center of the table, visible for all present players to see. It was a live-stream viewer of Aegis’ livestream

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

On the display, Aegis stood within the training hall with his companions, including Herilon and Sapphire. Like he’d been doing the previous weeks, he was intensely training with the others, practicing their weapon skills and attacking methods while Sapphire stood back and kept their health up.

“They’re just training.” Lilya commented, while everyone else watched the stream in silence.

“If they were just training, how are they qualifying?” Another officer chimed in, followed by more intense stares.

“There… that’s odd…” Synopse broke the silence, pointing intensely at the screen as Darkshot was on display firing a volley at Aegis.

“What?”

“The ranger, Darkshot… His bird is not with him. It’s off to the side, on Sapphire’s shoulders instead.” Synopse pointed this out quickly.

“So?” Lilya replied with a confused look.

“Why wouldn’t Darkwing sit on his shoulder? I’ve studied their playstyle quite a bit. That bird always sits on his shoulder.” Synopse answered.

“It could just be resting. Their training is pretty intense.” A fourth player joined into the conversation as they all watched Aegis’ stream intently.

“Yeah but, why are they even bothering with training? They should’ve given up on participating. But somehow, they’re still qualifying one by one.” Calikgos spoke up for the first time.

“Uh…” The VGN player spoke up nervously, drawing all eyes unto himself. “You’re not going to believe this, but Darkshot just earned enough gladiator points as well. I watched it happen - he went from 0 to 100.”

“What?” Makaroth shouted in disbelief, standing up from the table.

“How’s that possible? He’s right in front of us. Is this a past broadcast?” Lilya asked.

“It’s live…” The officer who turned the livestream feed on declared.

“That’s…” Synopse stood up and squinted his eyes at the screen closely. “That’s not Darkshot.” He finally spotted enough odd movements in Cheryl’s performance to say it with certainty. “That’s most likely a disguise. Perhaps the Avatar of Loki player is back, helping them.”

“That’s unlikely. You really think they’d work with those guys after they tried to sink their island?” Calikgos asked no one in particular.

“That kid will do anything to get back at me.” Makaroth answered, clenching his fists on the table. “How are they qualifying?” Makaroth asked everyone around him. “Anyone? Any ideas? They’ve still gotta qualify Aegis, and he’s the streamer. Loki won’t work on him.” He paused, waiting for a response, but got nothing. “Come on people.” Makaroth clapped angrily, startling a few of them in their chairs at his sudden change in demeanor - seeing him this angry wasn’t something they were accustomed to.

“Uhm… whatever it was, it was worth 100 points. The standard tournaments only reward 50 points for reaching first place.” The VGN employee answered timidly.

“So? What structured PvP event rewards 100 points?” Makaroth asked the table expectantly, but still got no response. “Anyone? Come on? Any ideas? One of you must have something, we’ve got the top players in this entire game world sitting in this room.”

“Sorry, I don’t really pay attention to much PvP stuff.” Calikgos replied apologetically.

“Me too.” Lilya added.

“Well…” Synopse began frantically fidgeting through his interface, checking over the database for any information he could find, until finally, he landed on something. “No way...” Synopse said with wide-eyes of disbelief.

“What? What is it?”

“Brawler’s Tournament. Underground thieves and fighters guilds, certain ones are sanctioned to be recognized by the official PvP tournaments.” Synopse explained.

“What the hell is a Brawler’s Tournament?” Makaroth asked him quickly.

“It’s a Free for all tournament. 16 players participate, only, no one ever does it because if you lose, you can drop items on death and the victor can loot them. There is a modifier for combatants to increase the chance of them dropping items and gold on death as well, and it has a minimum gold participation cost. The outcome is also often completely unpredictable, but if you win one of those brawls, you earn 100 gladiator points.” Synopse explained.

“That’s gotta be how they’re doing it.” Calikgos shrugged.

“Fill up all registration slots for all of the remaining brawls. Right now.” Makaroth turned to the VGN employee.

“Wha? I uh… I don’t really know where to sign up for those events. We’re also pretty low on proxies, we’ve already had to hire out of firm to fill up the tournament slots.” The VGN employee pulled back from him, wincing in anticipation of his response.

“I don’t care how you do it, get those brawl slots filled, now!” Makaroth shouted.

“Makaroth… relax. Is it really that big of a deal if they qualify?” Synopse tried to calm him down. Makaroth didn’t answer with words, but instead glared back at him.

“Shows over!” Finley shouted as he ran up towards Aegis with Darkshot by his side.

“Huh? Wait, what? What are you doing?” Aegis looked at him in surprise, but had no time to react in any meaningful way to hide Finley from his broadcast.

“Forget about that, they’re already onto us. We’ve gotta move quickly.” Finley grabbed his shoulder and yanked Aegis away, while simultaneously Cheryl warped out of her Darkshot transformation and back into her real form.

“Go quick, Aegis!” Darkshot urged him to follow Finley without resisting. Finley pulled Aegis through the streets quickly, with all others racing to keep up with them. Players and NPCs alike were pushed aside by the players, some grumbling at how rude they were to rush through the streets like that, whilst others were excited to see Aegis passing by with his large livestream viewership.

“What’s going on?” Aegis asked as they moved, Finley was able to release Aegis’ arm so that the two began running side by side.

“I told you it was a one off, and if they figured out what we were doing they could easily mess with it. They figured it out, we’ve gotta register you fast before it’s too late. My proxies aren’t even ready yet.” Finley grumbled in frustration - he was fidgeting with his interface now while running alongside Aegis.

They quickly made their way through several intersections towards a section of Kordas that Aegis had never visited before. It was on the shady side, with strange merchants lining the streets wearing overly baggy clothing and staring curiously at them as they ran past.

Eventually though, Finley turned off the street into an old rundown building that was squished between many others of likeness. The door into the building squeaked on its hinges and looked as though it might fall off at any moment, and the floorboards squeaked and bent under his and Finley’s weight. A small entry hall with deteriorating wooden pillars stood before them, with a counter on the far side. An old, balding and wrinkled human male NPC sat behind the counter, looking up at them as they entered.

“He’d like to register for the next brawler tournament.” Finley said.

“Very well, there is a small f-” Before the old man could finish his sentence, Finley slapped a pouch of coins onto the counter.

“Aegis has now been registered for the upcoming brawl. It begins in three hours, 40 minutes.” The NPC spoke robotically.

“Show me a list of the other registered participants.” Finley ordered him, while Aegis stood back to watch a transparent list of players appear floating above the counter. As it appeared, their other companions all arrived at the building behind them and entered, including Cheryl.

The list on display was of 16 slots, 13 of them filled with names of players at level 150. One of the names on the list was Aegis.

“Shit.” Finley read over their names quickly. “None of these are mine.” He said with a worried tone as slot 14, and then 15 filled up. “These are all VGN guys. Fuck.” Finley frantically wriggled into his inventory and slapped another gold pouch on the counter. “Register me.” Finley ordered the NPC.

“Very well.” The NPC replied, and a moment later, the 16th name on the list to appear was Finley’s. Finley then let out a frustrated sigh.

“Whoooo boy.” Cheryl chuckled, whilst no one else seemed to grasp the situation.

“What’s going on?” Aegis asked Finley.

“They figured out how we were earning points. I was using proxy players to rig these FFA brawls, to guarantee that your party won each brawl, earning them 100 gladiator points one at a time. But, this time…” Finley looked over the list more closely. “This FFA match isn’t going to be rigged.”

“No big deal, right? There’s two of you in, and it’s just an FFA. You should still be able to win, right?” Sapphire asked, but she got no response as a tense air filled the room.

“You’re mistaken.” Finley shook his head at her. “These names… they’re all VGN proxies.” As he spoke, Cheryl had to hold back laughter.

“You’re totally about to lose all your gold you just got hired for.” she said to Finley.

“You’re saying it’s not going to be an FFA at all?” Pyri confirmed, to which Finley nodded and locked eyes with Aegis.

“Hope all that PvP practice pays off. ‘Cause they’re going to block registration for the rest of the brawler matches. This’ll be your only shot to qualify. And it’s going to be a 2 vs 14 match.” Finley spoke coldly.