by Nikita Thorn
Ippei put down the document. “All right. I give up. I think right now the Yokai Night Parade event is our best bet for your mysterious masked person.”
Seiki nodded, before turning to Mairin. “Any luck over there?”
The kitsune had decided to start looking through all item descriptions, to see if anything had a special Slot.
“Nope.” Mairin shook her head. “They’re all Charm Slots or Inventory Slots. But can you believe that you can get up to eight Inventory Slots on this chest piece? It drops from something called Satori in Kaniwa Highland, not sure what or where that is…” She trailed off and sighed. “We’re not making any progress, are we?”
“Not really,” Seiki admitted. Over the past hour he had been exposed to more information than he could truly make sense of, but nothing relevant to the questions they were trying to find answers to.
“Should we just ask them directly?” Seiki wondered as he flipped through more art. “Maybe everything is connected: the Insignia, the named Trade Skills scrolls, the Shadow.. uh, item.” Somehow he could not keep calling it a ‘seal’ anymore now that he knew what it was.
“Oh, one thing we haven’t tried is the Demonic Clan language,” said Mairin as she leapt to her feet. “All right. I’ll go get some more books from the library.”
Before the kitsune got to the door, it slid open on its own. Behind it was Kazuki, who was still in his luxurious Festival kimono.
“I never expected to get lost in my own clan hall.” The man chuckled as he glanced around the room. “Good work, Mairin. It looks very sensible. I see you maximized the windows for every room.”
The kitsune grinned. “So your Wilderness sister clan won’t feel crammed in the City.”
Kazuki nodded in appreciation as he let himself in. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here when you got back. I hadn’t expected you to be gone for so long, and when I checked with Locate, you were somehow stuck in the Palace Prison.” The man seemed rather amused. “So how did you find the quest?”
Ippei gave a casual shrug. “Too many cut scenes.”
“Worst cut scenes ever,” said Mairin.
The ninja laughed. “I’ve heard the same from some people. I suppose you got to the last stage then. Would you like to turn it in now?”
Seiki nodded. Since this was his first subbed quest, it took Seiki a few moments to figure out how to do it. He discovered that once he was in the vicinity of the quest giver, a prompt would trigger when he inspected the particular quest in his log.
Would you like to complete Patriotic Spirits III [Shinshioka Scientific Society – Pacchi Festival] now?
“Yes,” said Seiki.
Something must have popped up for Kazuki, as the man glanced into the air. “Oh, five objectives… and, ‘Doing is a mistake’!” He exclaimed in delight. “Perfect. That’s one of the only two we didn’t have yet. All right. There we go.”
Kazuki has approved the completion of the quest Patriotic Spirits III [Shinshioka Scientific Society – Pacchi Festival]. 4280 XP gained.
The ninja paused to wait for something else to happen. A few seconds later, a wooden box faded in next to his feet. Kazuki sat down beside it and lifted the lid, his eyebrows rising as he discovered the content of the box.
“Oh, and you got abilities?” Kazuki looked up at the group. “With five objectives, especially the cherry-blossom one, you should at least get gear, and this box is empty except for gold and Tokens and a few Favor pieces.”
“Variations,” said Ippei.
The ninja smiled. “Very nice. You’ve got to let me document these later, since you’re currently in Ikumi’s group and I can’t inspect your abilities. But first of all… how did you get ‘Doing is a mistake’?”
Mairin quickly recounted their experience of the quest, finishing with their escape from the Palace and their suspected encounter with what Chamberlain Giichi had called the ‘network’.
Kazuki did not seem surprised by any of it. “Ah, I see. It’s the kitchen, not the storage house.” He nodded thoughtfully. “That makes sense.”
Seiki failed to see how that particular tidbit made sense, but he thought it too minor a detail to bother with at the moment.
“So you mean no one’s done this objective before?” asked the kitsune.
Kazuki smiled. “No one on behalf of the Shinshioka Scientific Society. Let me show you something.”
He produced a piece of paper from his chest pocket. “At the beginning of the Festival, every clan got this list of things to do, together with the Shogun’s message that starts the Patriotic Spirits quest line.”
The piece of paper, trimmed with official red and black, was labeled Pacchi Festival Clan Achievement List for the Shinshioka Scientific Society. On it were several lines of text:
> Accumulate at least 300 Clan Festival Tokens. [Completed]
> Ring all 8 bells within the City. [Completed]
> Try at least 30 different types of Festival Food. [Completed]
> Craft at least 15 different types of Festival Toys. [Progress: 9/15]
> Complete at least 20 different Festival quests. [Completed]
> Attend all 4 Festival Performances. [Completed]
> Defeat all 4 Corrupted Sacred Beasts. [Completed]
> Craft a balanced Festival Firework with all 8 possible elements. [Completed]
> Complete all objectives in Patriotic Spirits III. [Progress: 11/12]
> Hang up a Pacchi Charm in your clan hall. [Completed]
Complete 3 or more of the above achievements to receive a special clan gift during the Shogun’s Public Banquet.
“So for an achievement to be marked ‘complete’, it has to be done by a clan member or by a freelancer on behalf of the clan,” Kazuki explained. “The list automatically updates when something is done to help you keep track of your progress.”
“That’s quite a bit to do,” said Seiki. With the Festival being half over, he suddenly felt as if he had not even scratched its surface. He now understood why the White Cranes had abandoned the loot division meeting in favor of completing clan quests, or why the temple bells had been ringing nonstop.
There was no equivalent list of achievements for individual players, but Ippei speculated the system was keeping tabs on what they had done, and the box claimable from every player’s instanced banquet room during the Night of the White Dragon event would contain appropriate rewards.
From Kazuki’s list, however, it seemed that the majority of activities included the ones Seiki and his friends had already been doing: taking quests, trying new foods and taking in the novel sights and sounds. The Patriotic Spirits quest line, considering it was its own item, seemed to be a major element, and Seiki was glad he had not missed out on that.
Marin nodded. “Wow, you’ve done a lot. Although… you’re lagging on the Festival Toys.”
“You need all the recipe drops, but Ikumi’s sister is helping us at the moment, and she said it should be fairly easy.”
“Oh, so that’s… uh, Irumi?” asked Mairin, referring to Kentaro’s clan mate, the secretary of the Crafters’ Guild.
Kazuki smiled. “No idea. I get them confused at times. All I know is it’s one of them.”
Seiki was sure that was meant as a joke.
The man turned his attention back to the list. “I know it says complete three for a clan reward, but I think the more you do, the better the reward will be. So we were starting to get a bit worried about the Patriotic Spirits quest line. You can only do the quest once, and once you complete it you can’t accept the quest again, so we’ve been getting freelancers to run it. Luckily you’ve just now got us ‘Doing is a mistake’, and so we only need to figure out how to get ‘The bamboo that bends’ and we’ll be done.”
Mairin cocked her had. “I’m pretty sure we looked at every bamboo cluster in the area.”
“Or oak,” said Kazuki.
“Sorry, what?”
�
��I’m sure you’ve already figured out that each objective is half a proverb. The full version of this one is ‘The bamboo that bends is stronger than the oak that resists’. Sometimes it’s wiser to yield instead of going up for direct conflict.”
Something jogged Seiki’s memory and he looked at the ninja. “After we were thrown in the Chamberlain’s secret underground prison, one of the Palace Guards offered to let us go if we agreed not to pursue the matter.”
“Right,” said Mairin. “I thought that was a bit… out of character for the guards.”
Kazuki’s eyes widened. “What did he say exactly?”
“Just that,” said Seiki. “If we admit we made a mistake about the sake shipment, the Chamberlain guy would let us go.”
“That… that fits.” Kazuki sounded a little breathless. “I’ll get Aku to run it now. You see, Ikumi said we should leave one of us till the end so we could pick up the missing bits. That was smart. Just give me a minute.”
He quickly produced a writing kit. On it were already several lines of text in three columns. Seiki took a quick glance and saw that it was a list of all the objectives. “All right. So, five there… and four… ah, now it makes perfect sense!” Kazuki sounded triumphant.
Once again, Seiki could not see what was making perfect sense.
“Care to explain?” said Mairin.
“So, we’ve run this ourselves and gotten a lot of freelancers to do it to collect all the objectives, and I think I understand now how it works. There are actually three stages in this quest. The first stage has five objectives.” He pointed to the first column.
First Stage
A clever hawk
Clouds over the moon
Catching sea-bream
Fall seven times
The stake that sticks out
Mairin nodded. “So we got three of those, and we almost got ‘A clever hawk’, but we couldn’t catch her.”
“That’s a tricky one.” Kazuki smiled. “She disguises herself as one of the servants and simply walks out, and there’s a very small window to notice her before she despawns. The full phrase is ‘A clever hawk hides its talons’. After we ran it the first time we realized what it was, so Ikumi went in having looked up all the phrases in advance and it’s easier that way. If you manage to catch the clever hawk girl, you’ll discover that she’s the one who forged the delivery stamp.”
“So she’s working with the demons, too?”
“Oh, no. She works for Lady Saori, who has intercepted a message from Lady Shiharu about the sake, and has funnily misread the town name. Since the sake shipment has mysteriously disappeared, Lady Saori sends in a low-grade batch and has her servant see to it that it gets logged as Kichigawa sake. Meanwhile, Lord Koshita unwittingly lent his cellar to the Demonic Clan.”
“That’s… complicated,” said Seiki. The quest was already over and he would not remember any of this by the time he got to Level 20, even if he wanted to go back to do Inner Palace quests.
“Who’s Lord Koshita?” asked Mairin.
“The bream-catcher.” Kazuki looked surprised that they did not know. “The biggest tool in the Inner Palace who manages to get himself involved in every plot possible.” The man chuckled and shook his head in amusement. “Anyway, so there are five first-level objectives that can be done in any order, and you do three of those, you can finish the quest.”
Mairin frowned. “By talking to Third-Rank Official guy and accepting that nothing will be done?”
“Nothing wrong with that,” said Kazuki. “Sometimes you can decide it’s not your fight. But, anyway, if you have completed at least two of the first-stage objectives, second-stage objectives open up.” He pointed to the second column. “To which we can add, thanks to you, ‘Doing is a mistake’. I’m willing to bet ‘The bamboo that bends’ goes here, too.” Kazuki picked up a brush from his writing kit and quickly added the two phrases
Second Stage
When in a hurry
What has happened twice
Doing is a mistake
The bamboo that bends
“If that’s true, I’ll be able to write a guide now. A lot of people have asked me about the parts of the quest they didn’t see and we now have the whole picture. And it’s distributed quite nicely, isn’t it? Five objectives in the first stage, then four, then three.” Kazuki nodded to himself in satisfaction, for a moment seeming to forget he had guests in the room.
Someone once said the game was different for everyone, depending on how you chose to play it. Seiki now understood what this game meant to the ninja. Instead of demons and rival clans, the Society’s enemy was the unknown itself. The act of conquering it lay in piecing together bits of facts, uncovering unseen patterns, keeping meticulous records and turning the world into a predictable place. Seiki could see now that the man went about it with as much enthusiasm as a War player carved their way through the warfront, and he could respect that.
“Second-stage objectives are different, though,” Kazuki continued. “You can only do one of these and all of them introduce you to Captain Tsukuda. Once you get the objective, he tries to get you out of the Palace. So you have another exit point right here if you decide you’ve had enough.”
“But if you choose to continue, you get to Stage Three…” said Seiki.
“At which point, all roads lead to the Banquet Hall,” said Ippei.
Kazuki nodded. “Stage Three has three quest-ending objectives. Again, you can only do one of these.”
Third Stage
Lapis and quartz
Of flowers, the cherry blossom
Three years for peach and chestnut
“Does Captain Tsukuda die in all of them?” asked Mairin.
“Unfortunately, yes,” said Kazuki. “He also dies if you don’t do Stage Three, just without your knowledge.”
“I still disapprove,” said the kitsune. “We were supposed to have a happy ending for a Festival quest. I feel bad for Lieutenant Kato. Like, is there a better ending?” Mairin was tilting her head to read the objectives. “So, ‘Lapis and quartz’?”
“Lapis and quartz both shine when illuminated,” said Kazuki. “Precious stones shine wherever they are. There are good men in Shinshioka.”
“Not if you keep killing them off,” said Seiki darkly.
“Well said, Seiki,” said Mairin. “Okay, so how does that version go?”
Kazuki opened his mouth, and Seiki suddenly felt an unexpected pang of panic. “Wait. I don’t want to know.”
Everyone looked at him in surprise. Seiki had not expected his own reaction, although he was not entirely sure what was happening. Ippei met his eyes, but said nothing.
Seiki took a deep breath. “It was…”
“Real,” said Kazuki quietly.
“Yeah. No. I know it’s… I mean, you guys discuss it. I’ll just… take a short walk.”
“Oh, no, don’t get up, Seiki,” cried Mairin in alarm. “I’ll ask Ikumi later.”
“In that case, we’ll just get to the payout then,” continued Kazuki with a pleasant, casual smile as if nothing had happened, for which Seiki was grateful. “The deal says 30% but since I think you’ve pretty much solved all the objectives for us, I’m happy to give you all the rewards.”
Seiki sat back down, and the Society leader distributed the contents of the wooden box into three equal piles.
As Seiki watched the ninja divide the loot, he took time to collect his thoughts. He supposed he did not want to be reminded how it was all scripts and neuro-pixels, as Ippei would occasionally joke. Deep down, he was fully aware of the fact, but he thought there was no harm in allowing himself to forget once in a while. Pushing that thought out of his head, he turned his attention back to the quest reward.
They each received 40 Festival Tokens and 83 gold, plus there was a Carved Wooden Dragon [treasure] that should be worth around twenty Favors when turned in at the Palace to be split between them
.
It was more than Seiki had expected, and he welcomed anything that could be traded for War Coins at the moment. The amount would probably not be enough for fifty, but it was still a decent portion of that.
“Most of our commissioned quests aren’t this ludicrous,” said Kazuki. “This is a case of managing future expectations. I have to point out that we’re perfectly fair. For normal quests, you just need to show us what you get from the quest and you get to keep everything. We usually pay an extra twenty to fifty gold on top for your time.”
Ippei smiled. “We’ll keep that in mind whenever we’re short on rent.”
“Yeah.” Seiki chuckled, although he was pretty sure it would never happen.
As long as they kept selling charms for Kentaro, they had a solid stream of income that was just about enough to cover any monthly expenses. Whatever weekly Missions they decided to do were starting to pay more now that they were higher level. The Festival had disrupted the everyday rhythm a bit, but he expected to settle right back into the comfortable flow of life in Shinshioka as soon as it was over. As exciting as the Festival was, Seiki found he was rather looking forward to it.
Kazuki took the hint, but his smile was still genuinely cheerful. “You can always message me or Ikumi if you find yourself in financial difficulty and need an extra gold or two. But now I’ll leave you to your research. Feel free to take as long as you need. I hear Ikumi coming to get me now.”
The ninja laughed as someone tapped on the door. It was indeed Ikumi, the Society houshi. As usual, she was dressed in simple green, without any fancy decorative pieces. She gave them all quick smiles and said to Kazuki, “Your guest is here. I didn’t know you invited him so I was quite surprised to find him strolling along the corridor.”
There was only the slightest hint of disapproval in her tone, kept tightly in check in the presence of guests.
