“Still have the hair effect on, I see,” Leah commented.
“It looks good. Especially for someone in a team called Night Dragon,” Leslie said. “Besides, I want to look stylish, if I can. If you can't be the best, at least be entertaining.”
“Oh I can't argue with that. How have you been?”
“Been better. We lost in the tournament semifinals, though it was pretty close. But we still moved up in ranking since we finished third.”
“Wouldn't everyone since there was one less team?”
“Yeah, well, we moved up four spots anyhow, so it wasn't just a reshuffling because you guys weren't there.”
“I wouldn't be surprised if you were up at the top before long.”
Leslie laughed. “Ah, thanks for the vote of confidence. And this is probably going to sound horrible, but I'm not so sure. That's the goal. Getting to the top, I mean. I'm just not quite sure we have what it takes to do it. We can get near it. It's just that one little hump...”
“I know what that's like.”
“Huh, do you really?”
Leah looked up as another voice joined in the conversation. This one was male, and it sounded very familiar…
She recognized the newcomer at once, but she didn't quite believe it either. The person before he was familiar enough: a medium build and height, light-colored skin and short-cropped blonde hair, but he wasn't dressed in silver like she had usually seen him wearing.
Leslie looked over her shoulder at him too. “Well, you seem to have a lot of nerve, just interrupting us like that. And for even showing your face around here for that matter.”
Leo shrugged. “I'm not sure what you're getting at. I'm a player here too.”
“You know exactly what I mean. I-”
Leah interrupted her. “It's fine. I'm sure he's smart enough to know that there's bad blood all around. Though coming around just to taunt someone is pretty low. Way lower than I thought he'd go.”
Leo gave her a confused look. “I'm not here to taunt you.”
“It sure sounds like it,” Leslie observed. “And why should she believe you? You're the reason they were busted back down to D-rank.”
“The commission-”
“Yeah, the commission said this and that, but only an idiot believes them. Anyone with a brain knows who's actually at fault. We watched the match. Are you really going to claim that Darin and Leah are at fault for that?”
Leo shrugged. “We suffered the same fate as them.”
“Yeah, I bet. Except you were probably planning on something like that happening, weren't you? So can you really count that? Or are you just going to keep going on and on about some sob story that no one believes. And-”
Leah cut her off. “Hold on a second.” She turned to Leo. “What were you saying about me knowing something?”
“Oh, that. I was wondering if you really knew what it was like not to be able to get over the hump, that's all,” Leo told her. “Not like that was really ever much of a problem.”
“So what are you doing?”
“Walking around. Talking. Recruiting. You wouldn't be willing to join a team, would you?”
“Is that even a serious question?” Leslie spoke up.
“That depends on the answer. Her answer,” Leo replied with an acidic tone.
“Sorry, but there's too much going on there. Plus, I have my own team.”
“With Darin, huh? Figures. You were always the loyal one in the group. I would have asked for you to join us, but I think you would have given the game away.”
Leah looked at him in disbelief. “What… What did you say?”
“OK, that was a poor choice of words. But the scene at the top was becoming pretty lonely. Did you really want things to stay the way they were? Where we were all just four soulless robots putting on the same show year after year?”
“You had no problems taking the money from that,” Leslie pointed out.
“Maybe I should have had problems with that. Maybe not giving back all the money from that makes me a hypocrite. But it doesn't mean what I'm saying isn't true either.”
“So this was planned from the beginning?” Leah asked, wondering if she should delve any further.
What did it matter? She had a new team that with a clear goal in front of them. They needed to focus on the D rank tournament if they wanted to have any success. And yet, she still wanted to know. Her questions about the betrayal hadn't been answered, and as loathe as she was to admit it, Leah at least wanted to know why it had happened.
“Define beginning.”
“You know, you're starting to become really insufferable, and I don't remember you being that way,” Leslie said.
“Maybe it's because I started seeing things a different way and got sick of just going along with the flow,” he retorted. “If that makes people hate me, so be it. I'd rather be honest with myself than pretend everything is fine just to get along.”
“You certainly did a good job of it up until you stabbed us both in the back,” Leah commented. “Would it have killed you to warn us about that before or after the match, not during it?”
Leo looked away. “Yeah, I wasn't happy about that either. But that was how things worked out.”
Leah felt a flash of anger despite herself. The way he had just casually responded irked her. She felt the urge to punch him, but tried to restrain her anger. It wouldn't do her any good, and she didn't want to lose face by striking out at him. Instead, she responded with words.
“So that's it? You're not happy that you threw away our name and got us all punished, just because you and Jon couldn't be bothered to bring this up outside of a match?”
“You're really looking worse and worse here,” Leslie said.
Leo looked down at his feet. “Yeah, I know. And I'm not happy about the way I acted. But it was what I thought I had to do at the time.”
“What you thought you had to do?” Leah asked.
He looked straight at her. “Yeah. I'm not proud about the way it went down, but it happened. And the breakup had to happen too.”
“Why?”
“Did you not see it? Did you really not see it? What happened to us while we were at the top? Once we took the top spot everything became about winning. When was the last time that we went out into the overworld, huh? When was the last time we did anything other than fight in the arenas?”
“So that's it?”
“What do you mean, that's it? Are you really happy with that? We were nothing more than a machine. Everything about us was focused on winning and nothing else. And the four of us were just cogs in the machine. There's nothing left of the old Silver Star. It's dead, and I couldn't be happier. That thing we were at the end was an abomination.”
Leah didn't respond. She couldn't, not when she had similar thoughts in the past. They weren't as strong or as disdainful as Leo's but still, she had felt something like that as well. Silver Star may have been a triumph, but their reign at the top of the A-rank division had changed something, fundamentally altered they way they looked at the virtual world. When it stopped being about adventure and goals and just became a matter of numbers and tactics, that as where the magic of this place died.
And they must have felt it. From what Leo had just told her Jon believed it as well. The team's soul had been ripped out as they fended off challengers to their throne. At first they fought with the same fire they had while they pushed toward the top, but gradually it died away. What replaced it was cold, efficient, effective. It had brought them a lot of success, fame and wealth, but…
But it was a shell of what they used to be, and Leah had felt its effects even as they fought to stay on top. Nothing except winning mattered, and everything was focused on it. Even when she was outside of the virtual world she thought about it constantly.
“I can't argue about that,” Leah told him quietly. “I know how you feel. I felt it too. But there were better ways to go about it.”
“I know that.”
>
“So does that mean you're out of the tournament?” Leslie demanded.
Leo turned around. “For now. We'll be back to claim the top spot with a new team. And we'll do it the right way. But for now we'll take the time to regroup.”
“Don't drag another team down with you like that,” Leah said.
“I could tell you the same thing,” he replied. “You're in the next tournament, right? I know very well that neither of you two can sit out. You're both too competitive.”
“Darin is the competitive one, not her,” Leslie said. “Though I don't see how that's even a relevant part of the discussion.”
Leo shook his head. “They both are. She may have a bit more control over it, or maybe she doesn't want to admit it. But she's still ridiculously competitive.”
“Everyone in the tournaments is competitive. Everyone at the A-rank level is ridiculously competitive. Are you sure you're not just lashing out because you couldn't hack it at the top of the division?”
“I said that, did I? That I was sick of the whole thing at the top. And I'm sick of the attitude up there too. Everyone thinks that there's only one way to do it, and everything has to be treated seriously. Everything has to be taken seriously and there's the right way to do things. What happened to it being fun? What happened to being able to take some joy out of it? We're all just mindless drones.”
“And you're just going to complain about it, huh?”
“No. We're going to change it. We're taking the top again, and we're going to do it the right way.”
“That'll be a change from the way you seem to be operating lately,” Leslie commented. “And you seem to presume a lot, to think that you're just going to get back to the A-rank just like that. Especially when you don't even have a team in the tournament.”
Leo let out a sigh. “Look, Leah, we don't have any grudges against you. And you have the right to be mad at us. I don't disagree with that. But don't make the same mistakes as last time and drag another team down like that.”
“Yeah.” Leah watched him walk away without another word. His attitude rubbed her the wrong way, but what he said…
“What a jerk,” Leslie commented. “He has a lot of nerve, talking to you like that.”
“Maybe he's right, in some way,” Leah shrugged.
“You can't seriously believe that.”
“Be honest, aren't you getting a bit tired about how things are at the top? I don't agree with the way he said it or the way they just ditched us, but he might have a point. It's not like I haven't thought about it before either.”
Leslie bit her lip. “That's still no reason to just abandon your team in the middle of a fight. Even if you have your reasons, that's still a betrayal when there are other options.
She sighed. “Yeah. It still sucks.”
Leo's words stuck with her, though. He wanted to bring back the game's soul, not to continue on the path they had already traveled and he had come to despise. Leah still had those feelings as well. The top might have seemed glamorous, but it was lonely too. So much of their time had been spent merely maintaining their spot, leaving them little time for their excursions into the wider world of Avalon Online.
And after their challenge in the Cave of Origin, Leo's point seemed even more pronounced. The dungeon had been something different, something exciting and a bit unpredictable. She and Darin had been able to use their knowledge and experience to make things easier, but it was still a change of pace.
It wasn't just the environments either. The enthusiasm of their new teammates had been infectious, and even after all of her hours spent in Avalon Online it had felt like something new.
“I think he's right,” Leah said. “Or at least, I think he's partially right. A change needed to happen at the top. And I want to be a part of that. I want to be a part of that with my new team too. And I hope you do too.”
“So bring some of the fun back to the upper ranks,” Leslie nodded. “That's not far off from what we already thought. But some people say that Night Dragon doesn't have the killer instinct we need. And will this really change anything? Other teams will want to keep their spot by any means.”
“Would you really want to abandon everything that makes Night Dragon what it is?” Leah asked. “I can see his point. Silver Star did that, and look at where we are now. I can't deny his point. I'm competitive, and I want to get back up on top. But I want to do it the right way. I want to enjoy the ride up, and I want it to continue while we're up there.”
“Sound like you have your goal.”
“And what about you?”
Leslie shrugged. “Well, we'll probably keep going the way things are. It did take us to third place, at least. And who knows, maybe it'll take us to first.”
Leah nodded. “That's the aim. We'll get to the top. But we'll do it our way.”
11
Darin heard the bell ring as he opened the shop door and stepped inside.
“You there Morri?”
“That who I think it is?” a female voice answered.
“Depends on who you think it is.”
A woman with short black hair and pale skin stepped out of the back. Darin noted she was dressed in a smith's apron as usual, and wore a pair of gloves as well.
“Just who I thought it was,” Morri said. “One of the few people that can actually get the name right.”
Darin smiled. “Sure thing. Morgan.”
She scowled. “Hah hah, so funny. I don't see how it's that difficult to get straight. Morgan has two syllables, Morrigan has three. How do they manage to get that confused?”
“They do sound similar if you say them fast.”
“Huh, not you too. You better not be here asking for a favor if you're going to be like that.”
“What if I was running an errand for Leah?”
“Then she should've send a better errand boy,” Morri replied with an amused smile. “So, what did you want?”
“The D-rank tournament's coming up.”
“Yep, and I've been making good coin selling weapons and armor to the players that air aiming for it. Always do, since they can't always get good item drops out in the wilds. So is that what you're here for? I have a good selection of pretty much anything you could want. All of the highest quality, in fact. And don't you forget it.”
Darin smiled. “Yeah.”
“I mean it. Don't go around spreading nasty rumors about my business.”
“If I thought your craftsmanship sucked would I really have used your A-rank gear?”
“Huh, fine, you win. So what are you really here for?”
Darin pulled out the magic scroll that served as the game menu and opened it up. “Your expertise is needed. We stumbled across some rare loot in the Cave of Origin, but none of us can figure out what it's used for.”
“That's the trouble with you fighters. You all just focus on your combat abilities so much that you can't even tie your own shoes. Whatever happened to being well-rounded?”
“Hey, tournament fighting pays the big bucks.”
“Yeah, it also makes you seem dumber than a box of rocks at times,” Morri said. “Anyhow, now you've got my attention. I should probably charge you for an appraisal, but I'll let it slide.”
“Thanks,” Darin replied, activating the scroll and bringing up the item he wanted to know more about. He sent a message to Morri's scroll and watched as she read it over.
“Huh, so I'm guessing that you had a fun time in the dungeon. This thing only gets dropped by the toughest boss in the cave. Or bosses, more accurately. So you managed to kill the Black Wolves?”
“Yeah, we did. It was a real pain too. The whole dungeon was. I swear that someone had it out for us and gave us all of the worst possible enemies.”
“But you made it through.”
“Only because we knew what we were doing. If we were a bunch of amateurs we probably would have been dead in the first room.”
“Yeah, now it's sounding like you're just pouri
ng on the melodrama,” Morri commented. She looked over at the scroll again. “Well, like you said it's rare loot. As it is it's useless, but it can be refined into an armor augmentation seal.”
“Do you know what it does?” he asked.
“Won't know for sure until I make it, but I've seen them before. Made a few seals with them as well, though like I said, they're pretty rare.”
“Yeah, so what does it actually do?”
“So impatient. Well, it provides a defensive boost to any armor its embedded into without any ill effects. It scales as well, so you can always put it in better armor as you go up the ranks. And it's not permanent, so it can be removed without destroying it.”
“What's the catch, and why isn't everyone trying to get their hands on one?”
“There's three catches, actually. First off, this isn't the only thing I need to make the seal. The other elements are a lot easier to get ahold of, but they aren't cheap. And unless you want to go out hunting for resources...”
I'll pass, thanks,” he said. That time could be better spend training.
“That's the first thing. The second thing is that the Black Wolves are a pretty rare spawn in the first place, and most people end up getting killed going up against them. So these are rare, and a lot of people don't want to give them up. They're trophies, so to speak.”
“What's the third catch?”
“The third catch is the worst one. It has to do with the points system in the tournament. The seals may increase defense, but they also increase the point value of your character build. And the scaling isn't proportional either, which really hurts.”
“I'm not quite understanding what you're getting at...”
“This is just an example, but say that the point value to defense value is a one-to-one ratio. With this seal the ratio for the extra defense is more like two- or three-to-one. So if your defense goes up ten points, your character point value goes up thirty.”
Darin nodded, finally understanding where she was going.
Morri continued. “So you might get a good defense increase, but you're also painting a target on your back. And if you're in a multi-team match then everyone will probably be gunning for you. To score points, of course.”
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