by Nikita Thorn
“Seriously, a turtle?”
“Someone caught it while fishing in Ishika Village, and having it in your inventory doubles the gold reward from all quests in the village.”
Yamura raised an eyebrow. “Oh, I guess that’s… not so bad then. The question is, are there repeatable quests in the village?”
“Yes, a weekly quest, and the payout is four hundred gold.”
The ryoushi’s eyes widened. “Okay, awesome turtle. Where is this village again?”
“In this valley on the way to Fuoka,” said Ippei with a grimace. “On the other side of the narrowest bridge you’ll ever see. The first time you try to cross it, it’s instanced, and it collapses and drops you into the river.”
Kazuki gave the samurai a little smile. “Oh, of course, you would know that.”
Ippei had said he did not remember the man from Beta, and Seiki was starting to feel that more people knew his friend than the other way around, and Beta players seemed to have a secret language no one else understood.
“Great.” Yamura grinned. “You gotta show me where it is.”
Ippei chuckled. “Let me just buy you a Society Wilderness map instead.”
“The full Wilderness map is eighty gold,” said Kazuki pleasantly. “And we’ll need forty-eight hours to get someone to copy it, if you’re interested.”
Yamura’s jaw dropped. “Oh, I get it now. Your whole thing is actually a lucrative business operation, isn’t it? You just deal in… knowledge.”
The Society ninja again seemed amused, but he continued with a serious air. “Collective knowledge is the most valuable thing we have, which is why we are highly selective of our guests and exercise extreme caution when it comes to guarding our records. In short, we ever only invite you in if we really trust you.”
Kazuki invites you to a group.
They all blinked in surprise. Seiki had to give it to their host for the timing of the delivery.
Ippei smiled. “We’ll take this as a compliment, then.”
The ninja’s face lit up as they all accepted the invitation, and he led them toward the stairs. “Here we are. The real and proper entrance to our clan hall.”
The second floor looked more like what Seiki imagined the Society to be. The immediate layout was almost similar to the ground floor, but with sensible proportions this time. At the top of the stairs was a landing that ran along the frontal width of the building, with red wood flooring that had been waxed and polished until nearly glossy. The clan entrance was to the right, on a low tatami platform, raised off the landing by about four inches.
Something, however, was amiss, and Seiki noticed the lack of another stairwell that should have come up from the other side of the building.
He puzzled over it for a moment before he figured it out. “Oh, the private territory.”
“Yeah,” Ippei said. “The space doesn’t add up.”
Both the private territory and the clan hall apparently occupied the second floor of the same building, but perhaps in different dimensions, and Seiki could not help wondering how many more buildings in the City had a similar setup. This meant Shinshioka actually had more real estate than what appeared from the outside.
“They get the front street-side windows,” Kazuki lamented. “We don’t. We get those back windows instead.”
There was no door to mark the official entrance. The left half of the raised platform was taken up by a large paper-paneled room that was now closed on all sides. To its right was a long corridor that stretched all the way to the aforementioned back windows at the other end of the building. Protruding from the right-hand wall was a rectangular decorative wood column, whose sole purpose seemed to be to provide hanging place for a vertical sign that said ‘Shinshioka Scientific Society’ in tidy, almost print-like characters.
“Either shoes off, or use these shoe covers if you prefer to keep all your stats,” Kazuki said, pointing to a low rack set against the wall, where there was a neat pile of cloth items that looked like thin, oversized socks.
Mairin picked up a pair. “Very serious question. If I put them on and then go fox, do they become four?”
Kazuki blinked. “Oh, I actually don’t know. I would think they would just disappear, like the rest of, uh…” He trailed off at that.
Mairin grinned. “Here’s one for your records, then. Do I get fifty gold now?” She slipped the covers over her sandals and burst into a white fox, who immediately bounded gleefully into the territory, slipping a little with four white cloth covers on her paws.
“That’s interesting,” Kazuki noted as the rest of the group picked up the shoe covers and stepped through.
You have entered the Tsuresa Alley private territory. Custom combat rules apply. Post status: permission required. PVP status: disabled.
Seiki only then noticed for the first time that the notification did not go by the clan associated with it, but the location name, which was surprising, since it meant that both Ichikeya and the White Cranes named their clans after the territory they occupied and not the other way around.
“Post disabled again? What’s with everyone and post paranoia,” muttered Yamura.
Their host did not appear to have heard him. “Welcome,” said Kazuki once they had all entered.
Behind him, Mairin turned back into her human form, winded but giggling.
Kazuki smiled. “Since you are here, would you like a quick tour of the facility?”
“Oh, yes, please,” said the kitsune before anyone else could respond.
Kazuki seemed pleased by her enthusiasm. “This is our exhibition room.” The ninja pointed to the shoji room at the entrance. “It’s quite new. It was Ikumi’s idea that sometimes people might want to see rare items they might not get a chance to see otherwise. You know, like if someone puts together a nice item set and wants to show it to the public, this could be the space to do it. This way, we can create events and rotate things out and promote awareness of our goals at the same time. So we thought we would launch our first exhibit during the Festival.”
Seiki glanced back at the large wooden landing, which was outside the actual territory. “So people can stand on the landing, which is still a public area. And that… protects whatever items you have.”
“Yes,” said Kazuki. “Let’s call it double protection. We don’t have to invite people into the territory in the first place, but with this design the public can still come up and take a look. They won’t be able to interact with any of the objects, since, well, they’re separated by the territory boundary anyway.”
“That’s a nice idea,” said Mairin. “How safe is it, though?”
“Even if they get in, we have even stronger enchanted panels here,” said Kazuki. “Here, feel free to take a look.”
Kazuki has granted you Design Rights to the Tsuresa Alley territory.
Checking what had changed in his mental menu, Seiki realized he could now see a map, very much like that of a War Instance. This one, however, showed only the current blueprint of the floor they were on, with colored lines to mark walls and room boundaries over a grid. Somewhere else in his consciousness, he also had access to a list of available resources.
Partitions:
[Shoji Wall]: 8 Resource Points. A solid wood-and-paper room partitioning wall.
[Shoji Door]: 12 Resource Points. A sliding wood-and-paper room partitioning wall.
[Basic Wood Panel]: 20 Resource Points. A solid wood partitioning wall.
[Red Cedar Wood Panel]: 80 Resource Points. A solid wood partitioning wall. 1 Enhancement Slot.
[Magnolia Wood Panel]: 220 Resource Points. A solid wood partitioning wall. 3 Enhancement Slots.
[Cypress Wood Panel]: 880 Resource Points. A solid wood partitioning wall. 5 Enhancement Slots.
Flooring:
[Tatami Mat]: 8 Resource Points. A woven straw mat used for indoor areas.
[Raised Tatami Mat]: 20 Resource Points. A block of wove
n straw mat raised off the floor.
[Basic Wood]: 8 Resource Points. Basic wood flooring.
[Hinoki Wood]: 10 Resource Points. Hinoki wood flooring.
“Oh, this is cool,” said Mairin, staring into the air in front of her.
There were sections for stairwells and other decorative features. Before Seiki could study more of it, the whole blueprint disappeared from his mind as another notification popped up.
Kazuki has removed your Design Rights to the Tsuresa Alley territory.
“Well, you get the idea. And no, even if you try to make changes, it will eventually have to go through me for approval before it can happen.” Kazuki laughed. “So, as you can see, we have Rank 5 enchanted panels as a preventive measure to protect whatever goods we want to showcase.”
Whatever the Society leader had tried to show him, Seiki had obviously been looking at the wrong place, and so he did a quick inspection of the wall panels around.
Cypress Wood Panel
[Enchantment Slot]: Nagaishi Wall Seal [Rank 5 Reinforcement]. The wall panel is indestructible.
[Enchantment Slot]: Takamichi Wall Seal [Rank 5 Reinforcement]. Pickpocketing disabled. Items placed in the open in this room are protected from theft.
[Enchantment Slot]: Mizuchimegu Wall Seal [Rank 5 Reinforcement]. The wood panel recovers 10% durability every minute. Fire cannot be lit within these walls.
[Enchantment Slot]: Daichouwa Wall Seal [Rank 5 Reinforcement]. Enemy abilities against clan members, mercenaries and territory guests have a 50% chance to deal only 50% damage and a 15% chance to fail completely.
[Enchantment Slot]: Reimori Wall Seal [Rank 5 Reinforcement]. In combat, clan members, mercenaries and territory guests recover health 200% faster and have a 20% chance to dodge fatal attacks.
Slightly overwhelmed, Seiki looked back at the group. He was not entirely certain what it meant, although three quick thoughts passed through his mind. First was that despite the Society’s welcoming feel, they had taken a lot of precautions around their territory. Second was that all these Wall Seals seemed to work on percentages, which would even out some level disparity in case of an invasion. The third, and most important, was that since the whole floor was reinforced with these panels and Wall Seals, the Society had spent tens of thousands of clan resources on security.
“Clan management is an entirely different thing, isn’t it?” said Seiki.
Ippei nodded. “It’s a lot of work if you go for public territories, since there’s a limited number of them in the City and there’s always the risk of someone coming to challenge or invade you.” The samurai then smiled. “So if you don’t want to get into all that, you can simply go for a private territory and do a guest list thing for all members. Much less of a headache, I’d say.”
Seiki once again wondered if his friend was trying to say something. Mairin glanced at the samurai, a slightly questioning look on her face, but said nothing.
“Let me give you a sneak peek of our exhibition, then,” Kazuki said as he walked to the large shoji room. “This is special, for the Festival only. We’re opening it to the public later tonight. Normally fifty silver for a ticket gets you to the landing and you can view the exhibits from there. But since you all came at the right time, you all get an up close and personal preview, all free of charge.”
He slid the shoji panels open. The long railings on the floor and ceiling allowed most of the panels to be hidden behind the ones in the corner, turning the room into nearly an open space.
Set at regular intervals within the shoji room were more than a dozen wooden waist-height display podiums, each showcasing a weapon. Seiki took notice of blades of various sizes, a spear, a staff, and some wood carved art.
One of the nearest daggers looked familiar, and reminded him of the Needle of the Weaving Princess that Kentaro had just used to make the mysterious headband a few days ago. It was not until he saw its label Orihime no Hari [unique], that his breath caught.
His eyes darted to the rest of the items on display. The nearest three he could see were a black blade, a reddish metal dagger and a long wooden staff with an ornate carved tip, all of which he found vaguely familiar. As in a proper exhibition, there were wooden placards on each of the display podium to indicate what the items were:
Horn of the Ox Demon
Ushi-oni no Tsuno [unique]
Fang of the Blood Moon
Ketsuki no Kiba [unique]
On loan from Ichikeya
Oar of Time
Jikan no Yagura [unique]
On loan from Kiyosei Temple
There were several more pieces. Seiki did not recognize all of them, but their [unique] labels screamed out louder than anything could have.
He counted eleven items. Considering these were out of the total of sixteen, Seiki could not help feeling a little light-headed as he finally realized what the exhibition was about.
“Uniques,” Mairin gasped. “You have all the uniques.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“Are you completely nuts?” Yamura yelled, after a moment spent recovering from shock.
For once, Ippei agreed with him. “This is insane!” The samurai tore his eyes away from the room full of highly-coveted treasures to stare at the Society leader. “Why do you…what’s going to stop… anyone from coming in and sweeping it all up?”
Seiki knew it was only his friend’s last-second discretion that had held back the mention of Kano Castle.
“This is just a free-for-all unique buffet,” said Yamura.
“Which is why our security is really tight,” said Kazuki. “And if all else fails, Ikumi is a very good Enchanter, and so we do have a few more tricks up our sleeves.”
“Okay, can I try stealing one?” said Mairin.
A delighted grin lit up on her face when Kazuki nodded. She ran into the room and grabbed the nearest dagger, which happened to be the Needle of the Weaving Princess. She casually bundled it up in its leather wrap, and stuffed it into her kimono sleeve and waited, her eyes fixed on the empty space it had occupied. A second later, the blade faded back into its original spot.
“Well, I gottta say pocketing a unique feels pretty good,” said the kitsune.
Kazuki looked as if he was a playground designer who had just let loose a group of children at his newest creation and made no effort to hide his amusement. “It’s not as risky as you think. The public will view the exhibits from the landing over there,” he said, pointing toward the front of the territory. “No one will be invited in.”
“I challenge the Society,” muttered Yamura as if under a spell.
Kazuki laughed. “If that happens, which is very unlikely, by the way, we’ll just say no, after which we will have seven days until you can challenge again and we’re forced to accept, by which time we will have returned all the pieces to their owners and there would be no point in challenging us anymore.” The ninja then tapped the wall. “And as a backup, as I’ve showed you, these walls are reinforced with max-rank Seals.”
Seiki glanced at the Sealed Panels again on the walls. With no experience with how territory invasion worked, he had no idea how robust the Society’s precautionary methods were, although to his untrained eyes they looked extremely solid.
“Do you ever get invaded?” asked Yamura.
“No. Never here in our main office. Our secondary territories, though, is another story, as your friend Seiki here would know. But we never keep anything very important outside our main office anyway.”
“Who in their right mind would invade the Society?” said Mairin. “The whole City would be at your throat.”
Seiki supposed that was true. There was some kind of an unwritten rule that regarded the Society differently from common clans, and most people treated them as if they were a public institution. Their members walked untouched through City brawls, and every clan in the city would most likely rally to their defense if someone tried to invade them. Other neutral clans,
like the Merchants’ Guild and the Crafters’ Guild seemed to enjoy similar privileges, but to a lesser extent.
“Invading here would be difficult with these Sealed Panels,” Ippei admitted. “But still…” He shook his head. “This is bold.”
“Oh, that’s the point,” said Kazuki with a smile. “We’re trying to make a statement. So, do feel free to take a closer look. Yes, Yamura, you can touch, of course. Oh, before you get too excited, let me just say they’re not all real.”
“What?” said Yamura. “What do you mean they’re not real?”
“Unfortunately, not everyone was willing to let us borrow. So we had to substitute some with the closest replicas we could find. You can see some of the placards clearly say ‘replica’ on them.”
Ippei glanced around to take note of the items. “Seven out of sixteen is still very impressive.”
“Yeah.” Seiki nodded. He had never seen two uniques together at once before, and the effect of seeing them all together, replicas or not, was rather dizzying.
On the wall of the shoji room was an official-looking wooden sign, with tidy ink text to help educate visitors on what they were looking at.
Unique Named Weapons
There are sixteen unique weapons in the game, each with a unique effect not found on other weapons. Like all weapons, uniques must be equipped for their effects to be accessible. However, unlike named weapons, they never bind to any specific player, meaning that they can still be looted or Pickpocketed even when equipped.
Most uniques are daggers, which can be used universally by any player, but class-specific pieces exist, such as the spear Spirit of the Morning Fog, which can only be wielded by ryoushi, or the staff Oar of Time, which is designed for casting classes. No one knows the purpose of unique weapons, though many theories exist.
Due to limitations in acquiring the pieces for the exhibition, some of these are replicas directly modeled after the items or the most accurate known drawings.
