by Nikita Thorn
Koumyo Great Bow. Main Weapon Slot. +121 attack. Effect: every shot fired has a 2% chance to trigger a free charge of Extreme Focus, stacking up to three times. Scalable.
Smoke-touched Energy Pearl. +6 max unit energy.
Tiny Sheep Jade Carving [treasure]
Sealed Card [x3]
Spirit Essence [x2]. Ingredient.
Fire Essence. Ingredient.
Hinoki Soot. Ingredient.
The list continued into even more obscure crafting ingredients of various shapes and sizes. Seiki’s lack of experience made it difficult for him to judge the objective quality of the drops, but if he were to be honest, this was the most awe-inspiring set of loot he had ever seen, even when counting what they had gotten from the Shussebora instance. The West Defenders appeared pleased, but not wildly excited, except for the two remaining ryoushi, who both gaped at the bow.
As Seiki got to the bottom of the pile, his breath caught when he saw two other items of nondescript gray:
Sheathed Blade. Must be Level 14 to unsheathe.
Encased Weapon. Must be Level 14 to reveal.
The former was the shape of a flat box while the latter was the size of a short blade, which meant the first one was most likely going to yield a named dagger. The second one was larger, and could yield anything from a bow to a fan to fist weapons.
He was about to glance at Ippei when another item caught his eyes. It was a long, slim stick, about a foot in length. Its matted surface was pure black, with delicate white characters carved onto it.
Yomotsu Incense. The mysterious incense blurs the boundary between the world of the living and the dead, allowing brief communication with the deceased.
First pick of loot meant both he and Ippei could each pick one item from the pile before the West Defenders had their say, and Seiki was having problems deciding exactly what he needed—considering he had not expected anything at all. All around, the group was starting to voice their opinions.
“Oh wow, I can probably solo-heal Nenshou reruns now with that staff,” said Sae thoughtfully. Being the sole caster in the group, there was no doubt the staff would go to her.
“Oh, yeah, beginner’s luck,” said Renna, her eyes still fixed on the loot pile. “Good job, Seiki. I mean, that bow, oh my God!”
Sae suddenly giggled. “Hey,” she turned to the instance guests. “You know what you guys can do right now? You can totally ransom that bow with your first pick. Bid starts at five thousand gold, just for you archers to keep the bow between yourselves. Twenty percent cut for me, of course.” She whispered the last bit, loud enough for her clan mates to hear.
“Hey, Sae, whose side are you on?” cried Yoshitsune.
“Traitor,” said Renna.
Umiko laughed and waved her clan mates off. Her expression sobered as she turned towards Ippei. “All right, I’ve got a better deal for you,” she said, although it was clear to everyone no ransoming was going to happen. “How about you let these ryoushi have the bow, and, in exchange, we keep you up-to-date on all our reruns of old instances. You can join any team you want as long as there are spots left, until you catch up.”
“Deal,” said Ippei, even before she could finish her offer. This was what the samurai had been hoping for all along, and Seiki was fascinated by how quickly everything was falling into place.
“The bow is safe,” said Yoshitsune triumphantly.
Umiko smirked. “You still have to fight Aki for it.”
“Two grands for me not to contest,” said Renna innocently.
“Why would you contest?” cried Yoshitsune. “Yours already scales.”
Renna shrugged. “It doesn’t give me free Focused Shots.”
As the ryoushi continued their friendly bicker, Kisho let out a sigh. “Nothing ever drops for my class.”
“What are you talking about?” said Umiko with a laugh. “You pulled your scalable in Kakoku.”
Scalable weapons were apparently a big deal. Seiki took the opportunity to quickly inspect the ninja’s primary weapons, a pair of large kunai knives: Koumorizume. +47 speed +62 attack 2% max energy. Effect: dealing damage with one of the weapons allows the user to recall the other to their hand once every 45 seconds. Scalable.
It also had a special Slot, with an attack-boosting charm in it, to make up for the relatively low base attack for the level. After seeing that, Seiki agreed with Umiko the ninja had nothing to complain about.
“That was ages ago,” muttered the ninja as he pointed to the loot on the ground. “And, look, staff. That’s Sae’s. And that cloth armor, Sae again. And she’s not even gonna use it, so it’s gonna end up as guardian fuel.”
“You can go for the Encased Weapon,” Sae consoled him.
“Yeah,” said Kisho. “But it’s Level 14, and watch it turn into another spyglass. At least, well, at least Umi owes me five hundred gold.” He chuckled as he turned toward Seiki and Ippei. “You know, she said you guys wouldn’t pull it off.”
Ippei lifted an eyebrow. “You actually bet against us?”
Umiko shrugged. “I made sure I win either way.”
Sae laughed. “Umi wanted it to work out so bad she did everything to reverse-jinx the run.”
Umiko let out a short breath and waved her hand dismissively, before turning and shouting to her clan mate, who was sitting on his horse a distance away. “Hey, Endo, no dual-wield charm! You can come over now!”
Outside of their efficient war attempts, the West Defenders turned out to be a lively crowd, especially in their current mood, and they continued to discuss gear and who would go first or whether someone would choose for Aki, who had had to leave early.
Seiki turned his attention to the treasure. Despite the various very attractive items, the ninja was right, and most were skewed in favor of caster classes. “What do you think?” he said quietly to his friend.
“The Seal’s the best of the lot,” said Ippei. “So if you’re not picking it, I will.”
Seiki was admittedly surprised by his friend’s choice. “You take it.”
Grinning, Ippei removed the Shichifukujin Seal from the pile. “The dodge buff doesn’t matter. It’s the chance at better Cards.”
There was a tinge of mystery in his voice that Seiki had learned to recognize, but what his friend obviously did not want to say in front of the West Defenders was better left for a discussion somewhere more private.
“Damn,” muttered Endo. “I kinda want that.”
Umiko looked at her clan mate. “What? You’re with the Card Completionist cult now?”
Endo shrugged. “Wouldn’t mind getting something else besides the Honor Deck all the time.”
“Thank God you didn’t pick the Energy Pearl,” said Kisho.
“Well, Seiki’s still got his pick, so he might,” said Umiko.
“I’d go for that,” Ippei agreed. “A +6 Pearl is decent. The Sheathed Blade is riskier, since its base level is only 14, and there’s no guarantee it’s going to be better than your Kohagane dagger right now.”
Seiki nodded thoughtfully as he studied the options. “How rare is a…uh, +6 Energy Pearl?” he asked his friend.
“Well, you’d see one every two or three weeks,” said Ippei.
“What about this?” Seiki held up another item, whose label read:
Yomotsu Incense. The mysterious incense blurs the boundary between the world of the living and the dead, allowing brief communication with the deceased.
“That drops like… never,” said Yoshitsune in puzzlement. “But it’s pretty useless.”
Seiki glanced at the description again. “What kind of communication with the deceased?”
Ippei blinked. “You can’t be serious. It’s… Oh.” The samurai suddenly let out a grim laugh. “I see.”
“It’s something of a bug fix,” said Yoshitsune.
“I’ve never heard of that,” said Renna.
“Well, it used to be that if you move
on to a different quest timeline before you claim your quest reward, you wouldn’t be able to get it anymore. So they added the item and if you happen to have unclaimed quest rewards from an NPC and the NPC dies, you can light the incense to summon them and get your reward.”
Seiki stared at the item in his hand. “So, you’re saying I can use this to talk to dead NPCs?”
“Well, uh, yes,” said Yoshitsune, looking more confused. “Oh, okay, I see. You talked to the woodcutter guy before going back to warn the village, didn’t you? Let me tell you. That one’s not really worth it. It’s only for a few gold and the water boots. Yeah, the boots are pretty neat, but you never use them. Or, are you going for the Achieve?”
Seiki had no idea what the ryoushi was talking about, but he was already grinning. “All right. I’m taking this.”
“Or… I’ve heard the incense goes for quite a lot in the black market, since they fixed most of the quest phase issues and it rarely drops anymore. So I guess there are collectors willing to pay?” Yoshitsune guessed.
“Oh, that’s good to know,” said Seiki in relief. “Thanks.”
Yoshitsune smiled. “Okay, it makes sense now.”
Seiki had actually meant the opposite, in the sense that he would be able to buy more of the incense sticks from the black market if he needed to, and not sell the one he had. Only Ippei understood his intention and had a discreet laugh.
“All right, now that our guests have chosen, I think we can deal with the rest among ourselves in the clan hall as usual,” said Umiko. “And we should definitely not start anything without Aki here.”
“Yes, let’s do that.” Nobuki nodded, before signaling to his own troops. Several soldiers in Shinshioka uniform ran in with a large clan storage box, carefully packed up the loot, and left with great efficiency. The two ryoushi stared wistfully after the bow.
Ippei took this chance to catch Seiki in a private conversation. “The incense might not do what you want it to, you know.”
Seiki nodded. “Yeah, I know. I still have to try. The quest in the cave was… so abrupt.”
Perhaps he felt he had a duty to let a certain old swordsman know that his former ward had ended up all right. “And, at the very least, it would look nice in the incense pot.” Seiki shrugged it off with a chuckle.
Ippei nodded. “I hope it works.”
Seiki let out a quiet breath. “Yeah, me too.”
Perhaps, there was yet another young man who might also end up all right after all, and he wanted to tell the old swordsman that too, for the sake of closure.
But at that very moment, as Seiki looked up toward the mist-shrouded temple in the distance, he wondered for the very first time if mere all right was actually good enough.
As if responding to his sudden restless mood, Nobuki turned back toward Ippei and smiled. “Let’s get this going, then. So, please, everything you can tell us about the next Stage.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“So eight runs in Beta and no luck with the next stage?” said Yoshitsune, his voice raised to be heard over the rumbling hoof beats of the moving army.
They were following an uphill road that led toward the second stage of the instance, where the much-anticipated war frontier lay, unexplored since the very last days of Beta. The mild sun at the end of the first stage had cleared away much of the fog around the hill, revealing a well-traveled path of cut stone and packed dirt, with a sign at the beginning that clearly pointed the way towards the namesake of the whole instance, the famed Ruins of Hitsu Temple.
The players rode together in the front, and behind them was a long train of the West Defenders’ surviving and resurrected NPC troops, who, without the need for much instruction, had automatically squeezed themselves into a thin line in order to fit within the limited width of the path. Again, they were perfectly organized, efficient, and as inconspicuous as an army of three hundred could be.
“No, not even close,” said Ippei as he steered his horse around a fallen trunk that had blocked half the path. “We could never get the boss down fast enough before getting totally wrecked by the whirlwinds. Not to mention the whole thing is timed.”
Renna let out a sigh. “If you guys did eight runs and couldn’t beat it, what does that say about our chances right now?”
“Zero,” said Umiko.
Yoshitsune chuckled. “Well, nice motivation speech right there, Captain Umiko.”
Umiko shrugged. “We’re in no shape to do this, so we’re just going to go in for a quick peek and a quick wipe.”
“And the strategy is what again?” shouted Kisho from behind.
The group was in no hurry to get to the second stage, and rode at a comfortable walking pace as they took in the new setting. The path was mostly packed dirt, but with steps made of bricks or cut rock whenever the slope was too steep. The West Defenders joked about keeping a lookout for Demonic Clan items they should be preemptively gathering just in case. Luckily, there were none to be seen, and admittedly not that many things to draw their attention, the scenery being rather barren, with sparse, broken trees along the way that kept the players to the main path.
Seiki had nothing useful to contribute to the strategy being discussed, so he simply looked around at the surroundings, and occasionally glanced back at the high-level mounted troops filing up behind them, feeling a mild sense of disbelief that he was really riding with the best of the war players into the unknown war frontier.
His own unit was dismissed to avoid having them follow the army uphill on foot, and he doubted he would even summon them for the real encounter, considering they would not last a minute against demons and whirlwinds and whatever high-level threats the next stage had in store for them.
Unlike the West Defenders, Seiki had already heard the rundown from Ippei several times before and knew pretty much what to expect.
After clearing the Hitsu Village, players could proceed to the second stage, which took place in front of the main temple gate. One of the Demon Captains that were currently holding the temple, a powerful sorcerer, would appear as soon as the players approached the gate and would call in reinforcements from within the temple. The common demon troops were more a nuisance than a real threat, but there were an infinite number of them, and so players needed to make sure their number stayed within a manageable range. The real challenge, however, was the sorcerer’s conjured whirlwinds, which were deadly to the troops and could deal serious damage to players.
Ippei’s eight attempts had not been entirely futile. By the end of Beta, his group had discovered that the number of whirlwinds corresponded directly to the number of player units. The sorcerer cast his spell at each and every group of players, plus an additional one every six minutes. So the best strategy was to initially approach as one single army, triggering only a single cone of wind at the beginning.
“So we need to stick close together until he casts the second tornado. After that, we can split into two groups,” explained Ippei to the eager West Defenders. “Then three and four, as he casts additional winds.”
“So, in short, you can split into as many groups as there are whirlwinds out?” said Nobuki.
Ippei nodded. “If you split up too early, the boss casts more winds at you. So you want to do the minimum of four. Trust me, that’s hell already.”
“And you said the instance ends in twenty-four minutes?” said Nobuki.
“Yes, to the second. The tornadoes come out at minutes zero, six, twelve, and eighteen. Then four minutes after that, the gong rings from inside the temple’s Main Hall and it’s an instance-wide wipe.”
“Oh, great, now there’s a death gong in the mix,” said Renna.
“To be honest, it usually comes as a relief.” Ippei laughed. “Twenty minutes in, it usually gets so bad you want it to end already.”
For this part, Seiki had also already heard Ippei’s theory about the setting of the temple. The Demonic Clan was doing some sort of a ritual in the Main
Hall, and players would need to defeat the three Demon Captains guarding the temple grounds before being allowed inside to interrupt whatever evil deed they were attempting. Ippei was willing to bet the final stage had something to do with stopping the gong from being rung.
“Since there’s all these crazy things going on, why is it a bad idea again to break a Jade immediately?” said Yoshitsune. “A lot of us are on Fatigue, so why don’t we at least give it a good go from the beginning?”
Nobuki shook his head. “Remember we’re not trying to beat this, especially since we don’t have Aki. Why waste a Jade when we have no chance?”
“How about we just rush the boss then?” said Renna.
Yoshitsune smiled. “Oh, I like the sound of that.”
“Me too,” said Endo, grinning. “All-out rush?”
“Save your Cards,” Nobuki warned them. “And we should try to survive as long as we can.”
“Can you actually… kite these tornado things?” asked Sae. “That would make it a lot easier.”
“Not really,” said Ippei. “Only a few abilities affect the winds, and if they cross paths, they turn into a giant hurricane that shreds everything.”
Yoshitsune and Endo exchanged secret smirks, which did not go unnoticed by their clan leader.
“No,” said Nobuki.
“Come on,” said Yoshitsune.
“Maybe right at the end,” said Nobuki with a concealed smile. “But, seriously, everyone, just try to survive, map the area, look out for clues, and strictly no Cards. We already used five today.”
The clan leader had the final say, and the West Defenders soon drifted on to other wild ideas. Seiki realized that, just like him, none of them had seen the second stage before, and was having a difficult time imagining what it would be like. In high spirits from their recent success and under no pressure to achieve anything, their suggestions kept getting more imaginative until Sae declared nobody was getting heals if they wanted to let the whirlwinds lift them into the air and try to fly for a short while.
“Maybe you can have a whole army of obake, and they will get sucked up by the wind and then sail past the boss into the temple with their slowfall.” Yoshitsune laughed. “And they can bypass the…”
