War Games

by Nikita Thorn

  “Now, Kentaro!” Ippei shouted.

  Some houshi abilities were invisible. Seiki could hear Fumiya grunting, and several of his Shurikens dropped to the ground as Kentaro, who was still hidden from sight, hit him with a second charge of Reprimand and forced him to release whatever he was holding.

  Traps snapped, and several blades swished, mixed with unintelligible yells, before the noises were drowned out by a sea of spirit foxes running amok, as well as Kiku’s rustling sleeve as she appeared right beside the ninja and laid her hand on his neck for her close-range Life Drain. Seiki caught a glimpse of her chilly smile, which reminded him how obake could always appear like an angry ghost whenever they chose to.

  Then it was over. Fumiya of the Kano Castle lay dead on the ground, pale and still. Seiki stared at the number zero on his health label for a long time to make sure he was not simply imagining it.

  They had done it. It was the Kano Castle’s second-in-command. It was perhaps supposed to mean something, but Seiki at that point really did not care.

  Light-headed, Seiki simply gaped at his friends.

  Ippei must have taken a physical energy-less hit from the man, and was missing three quarters of his health. Mairin gingerly transformed back into her human form and was at half her health. A shallow cut was visible on her leg across her kimono as the white fox must have taken damage from a stray Shuriken earlier. Yamura had a bloody dagger in his hand, which he must have used with his Finish move the moment it became available.

  Kiku was looking at her right hand, a thoughtful expression on her face, as if realizing something new about her Life Drain. From behind the door, Kentaro peered out, and then lifted his hand to fill the group’s missing health.

  The houshi was the first one to speak up. “That was supposed to be quite disturbing, but I’m suffering from a lack of guilt,” he said as he stepped out from behind the door, sounding uncertain as how comfortable he should be about the fact.

  Yamura, who was certainly not suffering from his lack of guilt, let out a whistle. “Kano Castle on my kill log?” Then he grinned. “Wait till I tell Shota about this.”

  Seiki drew a deep breath as Mairin walked over and offered him her hand to help him to his feet, which he gladly took despite wanting to sit a bit longer.

  Ippei walked over and clapped him on the shoulder. “That was good.” The samurai sounded winded, as if he had been holding his breath all this time.

  Seiki smiled. “Don’t tell me you were doubting,” he said, despite knowing full well that Fumiya had never aimed to kill him, but was hell-bent on getting a connect with his named dagger.

  “Oh, never.” Ippei laughed. “All right. What was that at the end?”

  Seiki just now remembered his friends had not seen the Mapped Vertical Spike, and he quickly explained. Ippei simply nodded as if nothing could surprise him anymore.

  A soft gentle explosion sounded. Yamura had already unceremoniously looted the Level 29 corpse, dispersing it into white smoke. Another smaller but similar explosion also rang from where the Kaimu dagger had fallen as it followed its owner to the nearest spirit shrine. Seiki supposed there was no use asking the group if anyone knew what the dagger was supposed to do.

  “I’m surprised the smoke isn’t black. Since it was us who killed him, and technically he’s an enemy.” Mairin had joined the ryoushi by the small loot pile, which consisted of several pieces of paper and some coins and charms. “Let’s see if this monster drops loot…” She suddenly started giggling.

  “What?” said Yamura.

  Mairin, still squatting on her toes on the ground, handed a small piece of paper to the ryoushi. “Koharu’s haiku.”

  They all milled around to look. Koharu’s handwriting was in neat, tiny characters:

  Stupid ninja guy

  By the time you read this

  My friends will have killed you

  “That is not exactly a haiku,” said Kentaro in amusement.

  Kiku hid a smile. “I like Koharu-chan,” she finally decided.

  Mairin picked up nearly five hundred gold from the pile, and Seiki understood why the man had called a thousand gold change.

  “Guy’s richer than the dragon,” said Yamura.

  “There’s something else,” said Mairin, now with a slightly strange expression. “Also a poem.”

  She held up another piece of paper, thick, refined, neatly folded, which Seiki felt like he had just recently seen:

  Those who come seeking

  With a rightful aim shall find

  That a true path lies

  Between the timid ink brush

  And the brutal iron blade.

  “Did he Pickpocket you before he died?” Mairin asked Kiku.

  The White Crane obake blinked. “No.” She reached into her inventory to check. “I still have mine here.” She took out her own piece to compare, before looking up at the group. “They’re exactly identical.”

  “He must have copied it,” said Kentaro. “Maybe—”

  “No,” Kiku said. “I mean they’re exactly the same. Look.” She held out the two pieces of paper side-by-side. “This crease here. This dot of ink here.”

  Mairin grabbed one of the poems from Kiku’s hand and tore off an upper corner, earning Kiku’s wild protest at the destruction of such a valuable piece of poetry. To everyone’s surprise, an identical tear magically appeared on the other piece of paper. “That is freaky,” said Mairin.

  “Quantum physics,” muttered Yamura.

  Ippei looked confused, but said nothing.

  The poem actually had the same property as their Polished Shell Cards, where multiple items acted as if they were the same item. But Seiki could not wrap his mind around why and how this was the case.

  “Is this how he got in? Like, same poems get you into the same instance?” said Mairin. “This can’t be a glitch or a coincidence anymore. Seiki’s right. It’s them. It’s the Kano Castle.” She wrinkled her brow. “Kinda disturbing he knew we were going to be here.”

  Seiki thought about it. “He didn’t know. He was actually surprised to see me.”

  Kiku nodded. “He knew there was an instance here, but he didn’t know it was Seiki’s. I think at first he thought it was one of our clan mates’. He even mentioned Miki.” Kiku sighed. “How did he know about Miki? And why her of all our people? Why not Hiro? Why not hime-sama? Miki normally doesn’t leave the clan hall and mostly does crafting.”

  “Who’s Miki?” asked Yamura.

  The name did not ring a bell for Seiki either.

  “She’s one of our newer clan mates. Ryoushi. Doesn’t PVP at all and logs out during clan wars.”

  “Uh… is she high-level?” Yamura guessed.

  “No. She just got to fifteen last week. We had a clan celebration. Fifteen is the halfway point, so we have a big birthday for everyone who turns fifteen. I think we even invited you,” said Kiku.

  “Right.” Seiki guessed this was the latest RP event he had forgotten to decline. “I—” He stopped short and glanced around at the group. “He said midterms.”

  “What… Who?” Yamura asked.

  “Fumiya. He said: aced your midterms. He wasn’t surprised by the Infinite Blood Rush. He wasn’t really surprised by Mapped Vertical Spike either. I think…” Seiki paused to confirm it with himself. “I think he even knew you could get it from this instance.”

  Yamura frowned. “What the hell was he talking about mid-terms?”

  “Level 15,” said Mairin. “Half-way point.”

  “When you think about it, the instance is a string of tests, each room a different one. The main encounter was also a test, of some sort,” said Seiki.

  “So… mid-terms,” said Yamura, not entirely convinced. “What? You pass the test and then something happens at Level 15?” said Yamura. “Unlabeled instances unlock?”

  Mairin thought for a moment. “The fire-rat temple was before we got to Level 15, though.�
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  “I was already Level 16 at the time,” Yamura said. “So maybe that was my instance?”

  Seiki closed his eyes to reflect. His friends’ random guesses were helping to remind him of several other things Fumiya had said. “So, he knew the instance was going to be here. He didn’t know whose instance, but he knew some people could trigger the instance, and that you had a few in your clan, so…” He opened his eyes to look at Kiku. “So he ‘sold’ you the poem to get you to do the instance, so he could come in and steal the treasure.”

  Something else struck like lightning in his mind. “That’s why he wanted the outlaws to have the poem,” Seiki blurted out. “He was planning to do the same thing with them.”

  Mairin brought a hand to her mouth, and Ippei seemed overwhelmed with thoughts, but neither of them disagreed.

  Kiku bit her lips as she slowly considered the possibility. “Fuyu said the seller was anonymous.”

  “Was the seller of the first poem that got you the Pottery scroll anonymous, too?” Seiki asked.

  Kiku let out a deep exhale. “Yes.”

  “Oh.” Yamura finally realized what Seiki was getting at. “Okay, so you mean that’s this guy’s deal? You get someone else to do the instance for you, and then you come in and loot the treasure. Dirty bastards. These rich people, man. They’re the same everywhere.”

  Even when there were still things that Seiki could not completely understand, at least it seemed Kano Castle’s invisible influence on the grander scheme of things was becoming clearer by the minute. He could not help wondering why the clan could not have done the instance themselves, and the more he thought about it, the more it had to do with the existence of unlabeled quests.

  Kentaro was staring into space, lost in thought. “The treasure,” he muttered unconsciously. “Between the timid ink brush and the brutal iron blade…” He trailed off as he closed his eyes, paused for a moment, before his eyes popped open. “Maybe it’s literal. You see, the first room was the Scrollmaster, cowardly wielder of a brush. The third room was the Spearmaster, vicious wielder of blades.”

  Mairin gasped. “Between the brush and the blade,” she said. “The treasure’s in the second room!”

  CHAPTER 26

  “So it’s not here,” said Mairin with a slight frown.

  The group had spent the past fifteen minutes scouring the Potionmaster’s chamber. Apart from the tub in the middle, everything else seemed to have despawned with the disappearance of the dragon, including the charred piles of bones around the edges of the room, as well as the chest marked with a Shinshioka symbol. Now, the room was left frustratingly bare. In desperation, they had tried flipping the tub over, and the kitsune, in her fox form, had started digging randomly at various spots, all to no avail.

  “Maybe we’re really not in the right instance.” Ippei looked as if ready to call it a night and crawl into bed. He took a quick glance at his golden pocket watch. “Anyway, we have about… eight minutes before we find out.”

  Players were given sixty minutes after the instance ended to search for the hidden treasure, after which the puzzle poem faded away, signaling a failed attempt.

  Yamura was obviously not happy about the reminder.

  “The clue’s too good,” said the ryoushi. “And that Kano Castle guy was looking for the same thing. So it must be here. You know, it’s totally not fair. The timer should start when we actually start looking. Why are we penalized for fighting loot-stealers? It’s not our fault he could get in. Can’t we just report the guy for exploiting a glitch and ask to get sixty minutes back to try again?”

  “You can try pleading your case at the Bureau of Customer Service,” Ippei said. “Join the long list of unhappy players who never hear anything back.”

  “I don’t think it’s a glitch. It’s probably something to do with Favors,” said Seiki. “These high-level players know much more than they’re letting on, so maybe there’s something you can do that we just don’t know about.”

  Everything he had thought were unique discoveries, like the Crimsonfire Tekko, or the variations on his abilities, which had stumped even Ippei, had not gotten more than a mild look of surprise out of the Kano Castle ninja, and somehow Seiki could not help feeling a little annoyed by the fact.

  But then again, perhaps it should be expected from the clan. Considering the Kano Castle clan leader Yoshinaga had managed to get his hands on the unique sword the Ire of Izanagi, which was the best weapon in the game by public consensus, it should naturally follow that their top circle would know a few things normal people did not.

  “Okay, if they really know stuff, then they knew for sure the treasure’s in here,” said Yamura.

  “Well, but where else can it be?” Kiku glanced around the room. “It’s not like there’s anywhere in here left to search.” She had been running her hand along all walls to see if there were any secret sections she could Fade into. It had seemed like the perfect idea at first, but also ended up yielding no results.

  Yamura turned to Kentaro. “What’s your first philosophy theory again? Maybe you were right, like it’s some sort of an allegory.”

  “Metaphor,” said the houshi. “Like how a good ruler engages in both diplomacy and war.” Then he quickly added, “Not something I agree with, of course, since it’s been proven by science that non-violent action yields better results in all situations.”

  Yamura had long stopped listening. “Okay, okay, ruler.” He looked around frantically. “Ruler. Ruler… the boss of the dungeon. The dragon? Maybe it’s in the dragon room.”

  “Six minutes left if you want to run all the way back there,” Ippei told Yamura, who was getting visibly distressed.

  Seiki closed his eyes as he thought back to the events that had led to the instance. Despite Ippei’s skepticism, Yamura’s confidence was not baseless. Fumiya had seemed very certain about the location of the treasure. If their theory was right, the Kano Castle had set up an elaborate plan to get the White Crane Order on this treasure hunt. And if his previous theory was also right about how the Kano Castle had been behind the disappearing scroll at the White Crane Hall, it was very unlikely they would make the mistake of being in the wrong instance. Kiku was here because the Kano Castle had wanted her to be here, under the assumption that the clan would be able to trigger the unlabeled quest.

  The instance, however, was personal and class-specific. The variation he learned from Shousei was for a ronin ability, and the NPCs involved were from his class quest line. Yet, Fumiya had implied that it could have been anyone he had casually listed, none of whom shared Seiki’s class.

  “And what are unlabeled quests anyway?” Seiki muttered to himself. Until now, they still had no idea, except that Fumiya was aware of their existence. If any Level 15 could trigger them, there was no reason why it would not be common knowledge by now, and that theory also did not explain the unlabeled quest at the Nezumi Temple, which, as far as he knew, certainly did not involve a treasure poem.

  Pushing these unanswerable questions out of his head, Seiki concentrated instead on what he knew, or, rather, what else Fumiya appeared to know about this place. The man had called it a test, which was in a way a correct description of the encounters. The man also somehow knew from the beginning that the group had already successfully cleared it. Seiki wondered if Fumiya had slipped in before and had simply been waiting, or if he had come in only after they had cleared the instance.

  “Must have been after,” Seiki rationalized. Since the man had had no clue whose instance it had been, it was unlikely he had been watching them from the beginning. That thought, somehow, made him feel a little better.

  Seiki tried to imagine himself in Fumiya’s footsteps as he entered the entrance. The ninja must have seen that the first three rooms with the three different demonic masters had been cleared out.

  Seiki shook his head as he corrected himself. At the beginning, Fumiya had not actually been in the third room, but must hav
e guessed when he noticed the open metal door. After which, he went to check the Spearmaster’s room, located after the sharp forced left turn at the end of the hallway.

  “He must have been in here before,” said Seiki to himself. “He knew—”

  Seiki’s thought snagged on something. The long corridor where the three rooms were was perpetually left-curving. He opened his eyes to see if anyone was following his thoughts, but since he had not been voicing his reasoning in a comprehensible manner, none of his friends had been listening.

  “Technically, the dragon’s not the boss,” Mairin was saying to Yamura. “He was a victim. It was ultimately a rescue mission. And honestly, ruler to boss is kinda a huge stretch if you ask me.”

  Yamura frowned. “Hey, but if we’re talking metaphor here…”

  Seiki unconsciously glanced back toward the doorway. The first room had been on the left. This second room they were in opened on the right. The third room, located at the end of a sharp left turn, was also on the left, itself a large pear-shape space.

  Then it struck him. “It’s literal,” said Seiki, his eyes widening. “Kentaro was right.”

  His friends turned toward him.

  Kiku blinked and looked around. “You mean this room—”

  Seiki had already dashed out the door, turning left toward the Scrollmaster’s chamber where the first encounter had occurred. It took him only a few seconds to get there. Like the Potionmaster’s room, the furniture had already despawned, along with the numerous chests full of flowing scrolls, leaving bare walls on all sides.

  Now, without everything else blocking the way, he could note that the room was almost an oval, except the furthest wall, which was perfectly flat.

  His friends, who had caught on his excitement even when they had not discerned the cause, were right on his heels.

  “It’s literal,” Seiki said again, breathlessly, as they caught up with him. The room was deep, which meant if another room further down a left-curving corridor opened on the left, the treasure could very well be literally between the first and the third room.