HI! HI!! ! MY NAEM IS DROOLF THE HANDMAN!!!!!1 I WANT TO JOYN YOUR CLAN!!!! I'M ALREDY 17, CAN DO PVP SOON!!!!! LWTS MEET AT THE ANHURS SQUERE TOMORROW!!!!
Full of mistakes and all in caps – probably trying to create a bigger impression or something. What's happening? After deleting this nonsense and putting the sender on the blacklist, I skipped reading the third letter and went straight to the root folder of the mailbox. Once there, I ended up staring in incomprehension at the happily glowing '847' – the number of unread messages.
"Awake now?" The painfully familiar voice made me glance over my gaming avatar to check that my lower half was still under the blanket. Anastaria. ... "Good! I asked Plinto not to let anyone into the tent and sent Slate out for a walk. Everyone is gathering in thirty minutes; here's some food, eat it and don't let anything disturb you," the girl handed me an appetizing piece of meat. "Tasty?" asked Stacey once I’d finished and then sat right next to me. "Cooked it myself, especially for you."
"Thank you, of course, but why are you suddenly taking the trouble?" I probably still hadn't quite woken up, since I didn't understand what was going on in the slightest.
"Did you receive the letter with the Copper Ore?" asked Anastaria, ignoring my question.
"I have no idea! I have eight hundred unread messages, so if there's one with the Copper Ore, I'll need to dig for it."
"Just eight hundred?" Anastaria's eyebrows flew up. "My admirers are a shadow of their former selves, by the looks of it ..."
."..?"
"Yesterday there was only one topic of discussion on the forums – my jumping ship to some unknown Seathistles clan headed by a certain Mahan. At the same time many took note of the fact that the player's name is short – just a couple of syllables long – and that his level is under a 100. Everyone thinks that you mothballed this character a long time ago and finally decided to return to playing him. If you think of how many declarations of eternal love, oaths of loyalty and other rubbish I get every day, it would've been foolish to think that some of those players wouldn't try to join our clan. After all, it's not that easy to get into Phoenix, while here you are, some unknown low-level Seathistles – sorry to be blunt about it. But eight hundred in one night ... not all that much, really. ... In any case, your next two or three days are going to be pretty lively. I advise you to configure your mail and turn off the sound. Trust me, those pings could easily drive you nuts."
Ding! You've received 14 new messages. Do you wish to view them?
"All right, you can sort out the letters as we travel. Now let's decide on the best way for me to help the clan. Plinto had taken the stat training upon himself (and the spaztard is quite welcome to it) so I propose that Clutzer is trained in analyzing situations and Leite, if I'm not mistaken about his disposition, in drafting various agreements. After all, real life agreements and game agreements are totally different things. I'm sorry, but our Clan Agreement has so many holes in it that you may, for instance, freely get into the clan treasury and not worry too much about the consequences. No need to look at me like that, I remember the phrase 'operations with the clan treasury require the approval of the Head or the Treasurer' well enough. It's just that you probably don't know that operations worth one copper coin aren't subject to clan registration, but are written off as minor errors. In the course of a day any player can carry out over ten thousand transactions and if he sets an Imitator to withdraw just one copper coin per transaction, he could end up siphoning four gold off the clan's account each day. It may seem like pennies, but think what would happen if you had a thousand players like that. Neither you nor the Treasurer would have any idea where the money was going. We pointed out such a loophole to the Corporation at one time, but they suggested that we clearly set out the permitted transaction amount for the clan treasury and use that to close the loophole. By the looks of it, this oversight has a prominent role in the operations of the rogue clans, which specialize in theft. There's a ton of details like this in the Game. Like Elenium's defection to Phoenix and his taking that quest with him, for example. I can help Leite keep the clan safe from such things."
"That'd be a great idea!" Once again Anastaria had managed to surprise me. And here was me naively thinking that I had an ideal Clan Agreement, which even Barsina praised – you'd think she would have a good grasp of these things being a mercenary. But that wasn't the case at all. ...
"There is one 'but', however." Anastaria immediately brought me back to earth. "If I will be acting as your real deputy for the entire three months I'm with you, I would like to be treated as your deputy and not as a spy and an enemy."
"What do you mean? Who's treating you like that?"
"You, who else? Last night both quests got updated and if we decide to stay true to our roles of Head and the Deputy, it would make sense for you to tell me what happened."
"Stacey ..." I started, but immediately checked myself. She really has set it up rather beautifully – she was prepared to invest real effort into developing the clan, help with closing the loopholes and with training, and then completely push me into a corner. If you want help, hand over the information. And what was I supposed to do now? Tell her to take a long hike? That's probably what ninety-nine percent of men with, erm ... avatar dolls of steel would have done. But I must swallow my pride: I'm not a lone hero, but someone with a clan, albeit a small one, behind me. So, I'd have to share the information. But how much of it I should share was something I'll have to think over carefully.
"You haven't fallen asleep, have you?"
"No, I'm not asleep, I'm thinking."
"What about?"
"Where I should begin my tale. So much happened yesterday that I don't know where to start ..."
"Start with Beatwick and the Dragon's words that you are his son."
"What's that got to do with anything? We're talking about the Dark Forest now."
"Something tells me that it all began there," smiled the girl.
"Not exactly, but fine! He's what all the fuss is about." I paused and summoned Draco. The time has come to show him off: he's big enough now and in need of constant levelling up, but I keep hiding him like some poor relative.
"Hello everyone," said Draco happily, but with one look at Anastaria, he did the last thing I’d have expected: he entered fighting mode. "Brother! A Siren is here! I'll hold her off, run!"
"No!” I shouted when the first ball of flame flew towards Anastaria. You had to give it to the girl – she managed to put a bubble on herself just in time, so the Totem didn't do her any damage. ... "You can't attack her!"
"She's a Siren! An Enemy!" shouted the Totem, flashing his eyes at the girl, but stopped his attack. I’d never seen Draco so agitated; I must find the time to read up on why Dragons were at war with Vampires and Sirens.
"Right! Back you go," I dismissed the Totem, "I'll summon you later and we'll have a chat. And remember, no attacking anyone until I tell you to. The war is over!"
"But you’ll be careful, right?" Draco warned me as he began to fade. "Sirens are treacherous ..."
"A Siren?" I looked at my Deputy with some interest after my Totem disappeared. If the word 'shock' could be applied to this girl, Anastaria was definitely in such a state as she stared at the place that had been occupied by my Dragon just a moment ago. "So it's not that you've learned to control the poison, you simply changed your race? A Siren-paladin. Sounds nuts ..."
"A Dragon ... son and brother of a Dragon," uttered Stacey slowly, staring into space. "Did you go through modification too?"
"What do you mean?"
"You speak of a change of race so calmly you'd think you've come across this phenomenon before. Let me give you the good news: your case is the second in the entire incomplete eleven years of my playing the Game. Only the re-creation of a character allows you to change your race – at least that's what players are supposed to think. Six years ago I became a Siren and have now met my bitter enemy ... you are aware that our races were at war?"
/> "What's the difference what out races were to each other? I became a son and brother of a Dragon when I incarnated my Totem, in Beatwick I came across a scenario that ..."
"No need to continue," Anastaria interrupted me, "I get it already. In Beatwick you stumbled across one of the launch points of the scenario, made good use of it, became acquainted with the local copies of the High Priestess and the Princess, managed to befriend them, then the battle ... . In Anhurs the Princess gave you the quest with Slate (you still haven't shared it with me, by the way) and the High Priestess gave you the quest for the search of the Stone of Light. And here the legend about the Patriarch and the Dark Forest pops up. They've probably been wanting to launch it for some time, but no occasion presented itself. ... This is why the Guardian turned up, who gave you the quest and then you invited us. ... That's clear enough. But what happened yesterday remains a mystery to me. The present quests have been updated, but no new ones appeared, a possibility clearly mentioned in the Agreement. So it looks like you didn't get anything ... how could such an NPC fail to give a quest? He's not been put into circulation for nothing ... . So it looks like you messed up ... a Dragon-Shaman ... the Patriarch of Vampires and a Dragon!" Anastaria nearly screamed the last words, "You summoned your Totem in the presence of the Patriarch? Please don't tell me you've gone and done that!"
I didn't even know what to say to the girl's onslaught. It'd been a while since I've seen Anastaria this worked up. Truth be told, I'd never seen her like this.
"Arrrgggghhh! How?! Didn't you know that Vampires and Dragons are enemies? What kind of a Dragon are you if you don't even know the history of your race? Right, hang on a moment! I'm dawdling! Why the heck did you even need to summon your Totem in Patriarch's presence? Mahan?!"
"What?!" Anastaria's agitation transferred to me now. "Don't you think you're going a bit OTT with all this? Yes, I have Hatred with the Patriarch, but this concerns me alone as the owner of the Dragon. It doesn’t affect other people. What else do you want? Did the quests get updated? Yes they did! It's easy enough to find the location of the Lord of the Fallen's base and as for the Stone of Light – you have the High Priestess's quest: it's marked by a dot on the map. I'll bet you any money that this is where we need to go. That's it! We're as good as done, everyone gets bonuses and there's general jubilation! Stop jumping down my throat already! If you hadn’t logged out yesterday you could've gone to the Patriarch yourself! You would've managed to get at least a hundred quests out of him, sure as day. So the entire raid – because, as you said under the agreement the quests spread to everyone else – would've been sitting and scratching their heads at what 'Bring ten pine cones of doom to the Patriarch of the Vampires' was supposed to mean."
"Well, you've got me there," said the girl, who had immediately calmed down, "And there was me thinking you wouldn't figure it all out, but I just get worked up and you spill the beans. I guess it didn't work. Fine, tell me what happened next."
"Tell you what? Are you sure you haven't gotten confused, pretty lady?" I asked angrily. I'm just no good at switching so fast between emotions and I have a habit of finishing what I started. "What do you mean 'tell me'?"
"Exactly that: I'm all ears," the girl's smile grew even wider. "Mahan in the last few weeks you've demonstrated such unique survival abilities in the world of big money, that you've attracted attention. And not only that of clan heads, but a multitude of scam artists, for whom swindling a successful player is their main purpose in the Game. The avalanche of the letters you received is a drop in the ocean of what's in store for you. You have to learn how to communicate with players of every level and here we have two possibilities: either I help you, or you'll be learning from your own mistakes. It is, of course, your choice, but if you choose the former, we have to agree from the start that you share any information (and it is information I need) with me immediately and in full. I can't give you sound advice based on fragments of sentences."
"Judging by the way you're offering your help, you're not even considering the possibility that I'll choose my own mistakes, are you?"
"No," the girl shook her head, "you seem to be a sensible person, capable of listening to a woman's point of view, rather than one of the 'alpha-males', for whom there are only two types of opinion: theirs and the wrong one. For example, go outside and try Donotpunnik."
"What's he got to do with this?"
"What indeed. He is your second adviser. Like the rest of the raid, he had his quest updated and, according to the Agreement, has a right to know how it happened. And fishing everything out of you, down to the smallest detail, isn't that much of a challenge for him. Especially if you're unprepared."
"Yeah, right, so you, being so kind and magnificent, are willing to prepare me to face the monstrous Donotpunnik, eh? I can't call what you're doing right now anything other than a scam. So what do you want for the great honor of training me, then?"
"Nothing extraordinary. We agree that I will have the opportunity to ask you any question, to which you will give me the fullest possible answer. That's it. For that I am prepared to help you."
"Just a question? And not to transfer or hand something over? Just information?"
"Exactly. Items are not my highest priority ..."
"Tell that to the Chess Pieces," I muttered and tried to think hard: what could Anastaria ask that I would really prefer not to tell her? How to find the Dragons? That's stupid: she's a Siren, so it would make little sense for her to go visiting Dragons. They'd go into 'Patriarch mode', blocking any attempts to speak to them and chuck her out of their world. What else? How to become a Shaman? Total nonsense, since there's probably plenty of information about that out there. The Chess Set riddles I was going to throw to her anyhow, because I need the answers. And that's it; I can’t think of anything else. So, on one hand I should win in this exchange, but knowing Anastaria ... she's being just a bit too approachable, something isn't right here.
"Fine”, I finally forced out a reply, "I will answer your question, only let's be clear on what exactly you're going to do. 'I can help' is too vague – it could mean just about anything, down to tying my shoelaces. And nothing more useful than that."
"Sending you an agreement, it covers everything. At one point I signed a similar one with Ehkiller, so I still have the template. If the wording suits you, you can proceed to tell me exactly what went down yesterday."
"When the majority of the players returned to reality, I told my fighters the reason that Elenium left and why you joined the clan. I stayed within the limits of the confidentiality agreement, but I gave them the basic idea." I signed the agreement and then gave an accurate account of what happened last night. "In the morning I woke up to the avalanche of clan applications and then saw you snooping on me."
"So it looks like aside from Hatred you managed to get a 320-level ring for Paladins and Priests out of the encounter ...," said Anastaria thoughtfully. "Why are you so damn lucky? Even I don't have anything higher than 300 ... all right, we'll return to the ring later. Would you mind if we invited Clutzer?" the girl asked me, "It's time he started learning."
"Agreed. I'll call him over."
"Clutzer. Come into the tent, there's stuff we need to talk about."
"I wonder – will Plinto stop him or obey your order?" muttered the girl musingly. "I did ask him not to let anyone into the tent ... . One point to Mahan," she added, when she saw Clutzer come in, "Plinto's your man, congratulations. All right, let's begin. The majority of the players have only one question now – what happened during the night? Our aim is to produce a decent explanation for yesterday's events, without revealing any secrets, because under the Agreement Donotpunnik will be demanding full information. And he will be within his right: the quests have been renewed and people like him are real sticklers for details. So we have to figure out what we can tell him and what we can't. Here's what I'm proposing to do in view of what happened on account of Mahan's Totem and, most importantly, why I'm proposing it ...
"
"Attention, everyone! General meeting in five minutes!" I shouted as soon as I came out of the tent. "I have information that I intend to share under the conditions of our Agreement! There is no need to surround me now – I'll be telling everyone everything a little later in any case." I immediately stopped the players who had begun to approach me. It was Anastaria's suggestion that any attempts to refer to non-compliance with signed documents had to be shut down. This was quite dangerous, because there was no telling which way the Imitators' brains would spin if it came to any disputes. But if I made a clear announcement of my intention to comply with my own Agreement conditions, it would be hard for them to find fault. Moreover, as the raid leader, I had to draw attention to my good self and ramp up interest in [anticipation of] the meeting. Simple psychology, nothing unlawful.
"So, yesterday, when the majority of the players logged out to reality," I began with the requisite reference to the fact that it was their own fault, letting it slip that I didn’t mean all of them – just the majority. Let them look at each other and wonder which of them was around and is withholding information. Few know that only those unable to log out had stayed behind. "A Vampire-scout entered the glade. One that had not been changed. Yes! Aside from those we've come across, this forest also has unchanged Vampires. He used a portal and brought me to the camp of the local partisans and I spoke to their leader. You can all see the result – the quest was updated. I managed to find out the cause of the taint and what it is we have to do. The Boss refused to tell me the place where the Tear was stuck into the ground, insisting that the war between them and the Fallen was an internal affair of the Dark Forest. They will neither help nor hinder us."
The Secret of the Dark Forest ( (The Way of the Shaman: Book #3) Page 28
