Chapter 240
The Good, The Bad, And The Cassie
(Mallory)
As a guild leader, you are privy to many things.
Most of the information doesn’t seem like it means much, like being able to see the experience growth rate of certain individuals.
When Mallory first began the guild of experts, she tried to encourage people to level up as quickly as possible. At the time such an event made sense, as they were struggling to make a name for themselves. They were competing against the other much larger names out there, like the Rick & Rollers, the Red Fox Guild, and even The Juggernauts.
But all of those groups eventually succumbed to fate and destiny. But at the time, it was a battle. Mallory herself had to level to show how powerful her guild was. To provide safety for experts and professionals, those who saw the world as more than a chance to live out constant streams of violence.
Oh, a few high-level fighters, mages, and combatants joined the guild at first, though many did so under false pretenses, as many thought they would get to group with and therefore level with Mallory. Something that Mallory herself never endorsed nor advertised as a possible perk of joining the guild.
This was why originally only the artisans and niche workers stayed. Particularly after Mallory went out of her way to set up and protect said specialists on their second and third lives, even going so far as to avenge their prior deaths.
With the priorities of her Guild shifted away from constant battles, the rate of leveling witnessed by most dropped off. This was why for a time she never put much stock into the warning options for individuals within her guild leveling. At least she hadn’t done so until recently, with just one person getting the clear distinct warning ding sound that was endemic to everyone leveling.
Originally, the reason why Mallory assigned the sound notification for levels to this individual was that they were a pacifist. That in her own mind, Mallory felt that this individual’s growth rate would be so slow and monotonous, that getting a random ping of her success, even at 2 AM guild standard time (which was based on where the guild’s now capitol of World’s End resided).
The only problem was that somehow the person she had assigned the notification to leveled up sporadically, and nearly constantly to be at the middle of the pack or even now she was nearing the top echelon of leaders of the guild with her overall leveling rate.
For a second Mallory had the idea of turning off these now seemingly incessant and random update notifications.
She thought about turning them off, until logic took over and all but demanded that she stop and pay attention to what was happening.
Basically, every time the person she got a notification for this pacifist troublemaker, it often meant that the crazy genius had done something and was getting rewarded by the system. Which was good, as at first it meant that Mallory could check in with her best friend, see what she had done, and try to come up with counter measures for ways to protect the girl who was too creative for her own good sometimes.
Worse, just when Mallory thought about turning off the nearly incessant announcements, Mallory thought about turning off the notifications. But that was when the girl had somehow learned to hold back the notifications herself, and seemingly let them all get rewarded at once. Meaning, Cass could go do something that would completely change the world’s understanding of something and would wait to give out a system warning announcing the accomplishment hours or even days after it was first accomplished.
This was why, when Cass randomly gained two levels at 1:22 AM, Miranda was warned by a quick pinging sound in her mind. Mallory mentally noted the accomplishment of Cass, saw that it was just two levels and then groggily tried to go back to sleep.
Only for yet another ping to wake her just as she was about to once again fall deep into her slumber.
This time Mallory noticed that Cass had once again leveled up twice.
While leveling up was not a new thing, the rate at which she leveled seemed off.
Idly Mallory looked to see what had caused Cass to level recently. That was when she noticed the odd name of the last quest Cass had just completed.
Dr. Cassiopeia Spiritlight Recently Completed Quests (Sorted by Newest to Oldest) New Quest Completed: Cultivator Core Creation
Seeing the quest name, Mallory paused, trying to figure out exactly what Cass had done. Well what she had done was right there in the title of the quest, but rather who she had done this for. Also, what did this all mean?
Questioning what was happening, Mallory decided to look at her other recently completed quests and then found two quests that at least made sense, even if they were accomplished rather quickly.
Hidden Quest Completed: First Acanarus Tower Climber (VI) Hidden Quest Completed: First Acanarus Tower Climber (V)
Recently assigned ongoing quests: New Bloodline Quest (Ongoing): Tailoring A New Royal Bloodline Into Existence
Well, the second one was quick, the first one took the girl months to finally finish.
Seeing that the two quests had nearly identical timestamps on them, Mallory knew that the little scamp had once again waited to receive her accolades.
Though there was something odd that happened, for as soon as she witnessed the first quest completion about the Arcanarus Tower completion, and Mallory made a note to ask what she did to finish the quest so quickly, she got a new system message.
Emergency Quest Bestowed (Ongoing): Never Ask, Talk, Or Get Dr. Cassiopeia Spiritlight To Explain or Recreate In Any Way What She Did to get to Floor 300 of the Arcanarus Tower: As guild leader it now falls upon you to keep everything quiet and never confirm or deny any allegations made about Dr. Spiritlight’s actions when it came to reaching the 300th floor of the Arcanarus Tower. No one can know what she, or the other fellow Guild members observed during that time. Failure will cause Guild Members Maranda, Jhonny, and Penelope to lose all levels, skills, and accomplishments.
Seeing the new quest, Mallory thought it was a sort of low blow. No rewards for completing the odd task, and only punishments to others if she failed.
The threat wasn’t death, but a fate almost similar to death, as being reset like that was what would expect with a death. With the only difference being that if they had any active Merits, they would manage to keep said merits going.
At that Mallory looked at the other three guild members who were listed and saw that they too all had the same quest.
Jhonny as typical was the most vanilla of the bunch, only having the odd warning quest provided within the last 24 hours.
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Emergency Quest Bestowed (Ongoing): Never Ask, Talk, Or Get Dr. Cassiopeia Spiritlight To Explain or Recreate In Any Way What She Did to get to Floor 300 of the Arcanarus Tower
Maranda had a slightly different lineup, in addition to the recently assigned reset quest, she also had an explorer bonus.
Explorer Bonus Quest (Complete): Become the First Person to Reach Floor 300 of the Arcanarus Tower
Seeing the message, Mallory could only smile and shake her head at the generosity of Cass. Those bonuses were huge, and offered far more experience than all of Cass’s floor climbing quests. At that Mallory remembered how she got nearly a million experience from when Cass all but forced her to take the exploration bonus for reaching floor 200.
That of course made Mallory wonder if Penelope had anything interesting happening with her. As to be expected she had the warning reset quest, but then Mallory noticed an entirely new quest that caused the skin down her neck to come to life with goose bumps.
New Bloodline Quest (Completed): Tailoring A New Royal Bloodline Into Existence (Progenitor)
Pausing, for a moment, Mallory went back to Cass’s list and saw that she too had the same quest.
New Bloodline Quest (Ongoing): Tailoring A New Royal Bloodline Into Existence (Bloodline Doctor)
True to form, the quest that was clearly completed on Penelope’s end lay in an already pinged ready state. That is assuming she would have set Penelope’s quest notifications to ping upon completion.
Just seeing that Cass’s quest was ready to go off at any time made Mallory flinch with involuntary loss of sleep. Of course, she could turn off the notification. But then that crafty little sneak would be able to get by different events from Mallory. Events that Mallory often needed to be aware of to either try to turn a profit from, or what was becoming increasingly more likely, the need to divert, distract, or suppress information related to Cass’s accomplishments.
Of course, with something as monumental as a New Royal Bloodline being generated. And taking a quick look at Penelope’s status showed that her new marker did identify her as an RB.
This was an old feature, that Mallory had never truly known the importance of. In fact, it wasn’t until Cass came along that indicators like LB, and RB even became a thing. Or at least it wasn’t until she arrived that such markings actually made sense as to their purpose. RB for Royal Bloodline, LB for Legendary Bloodline.
Those markings were proven when both Mallory and Cass advanced to now have the wholly unique designation of MB in their community tabs.
Also of note was that now that Mallory became a Mythic Bloodline holder, her constant need to pamper Gwen, or rather Gwen’s baby was no longer an issue.
As she like Cass, or rather Cass’s Simulacrum who was now able to fill in for Cass on such situations were both presented with a quest update notification.
Would you Mallory Valhalla wish to bestow upon Gwendolyn Spiritlight’s child, your grandchild, the full blessings and flaws associated with being a Legendary Bloodline holder of the Valhalla Bloodline?
Apparently as a new Mythic Bloodline holder she was able to do such a feat. While Mallory had to do this task in person, she did find it odd that Cass’s Simulacrum could perform the same function on behalf of the real Cass.
How did Mallory know that this wasn’t the real Cass?
It’s not like all of the markers and indicators that she had spent so many hours watching and observing for differences between the real Cass and her Simulacrum had completely disappeared as if by magic. No, and the fact that she had been having a complete conversation about additional tasks to be accomplished, tasks that the Simulacrum didn’t shirk away from at all was also not a thing.
Nope, Mallory was completely aware she was talking to a Simulacrum the entire time.
That way when a giant burst of energy flashed before her eyes and Cass, the real Cass appeared and said, “oh hey Mallory, how are you doing?” Mallory herself was not at all frightened, nor did she almost jump out of her skin in fear at the sudden shift in energy.
No sir, that was why Mallory just replied, “oh hey, glad you’re back.”
“Thank you, glad to be back,” Cass began, but then looking at Mallory she seemed to realize something, which was why she continued. “I’m sorry, were you waiting a long time for me to return?”
Hearing that and not wanting Cass to realize that her easy method of discovering the difference between her and one of her Simulacrums had completely disappeared now that Cass had apparently increased in her bloodline’s intensity. Mallory instead just shrugged off the entire ordeal as if it was nothing.
“Nope, I just wanted to go over the schedule with you and make sure everything was still a go for the Kujos.” Mallory asked.
“The Kujos?” Cass responded, a note of curiosity in her voice, and why not. As Mallory had all but done everything within her power to avoid the Kujos since the ornery one became pregnant. Also, Mallory did not want to go over the same conversation with the real Cass about preparations for the upcoming wedding, as that would eventually get back to her and then Cass would know she could get away with much more.
“Yeah, they should be fine,” Cass responded, “though you are right, I should go check on them myself.”
Just looking at the momentary look of anguish on Cass’s busy pixie face, Mallory almost felt her heart burst as Cass clearly looked like she was in pain from not interacting with the blasted killers as much as she should.
In fact, just before Cass Teleported away, Mallory could almost swear that she heard the music to Cat’s in the Cradle playing its sadly haunting melody.
Poof.
And like that she was gone to take care of her feral pack of monsters. Monsters who only seemed loyal to Cass, her Simulacrums, and maybe Gwen, everyone else was just tolerated by the duo.
Yep, remembering that ordeal from earlier in the evening, Mallory decided to go to the nearest Simulacrum, and wait for Cass’s return.
This way she could catch the crazy girl causing trouble, and make it appear like she had purposefully let Cass go out to do mischief, like crossing over fifty floors of the Arcanarus Tower, or Creating a Core in Maranda, or even helping Penelope become an official Royal Bloodline Progenitor.
Actually, looking at the list of accomplishments for one night, Mallory felt that she was oddly impressed with the girl as that looked to be a fairly exhausting pattern. Especially with the fact that she was scheduled to teach classes here shortly, and as much as she might complain about her evening Bloodline courses, she never missed a chance to work out.
“Hey Mallory, how are you?” Cass Began saying.
Hearing the girl speak, Mallory stared at her, trying to see if there were any new signs that indicated that this was a Simulacrum or the real Cass.
Of course, it didn’t help that each Simulacrum had the same personality arch type as the real Cass, meaning they each would find it immensely enjoyable to confuse old Mallory into believing they were the real Cass, like some enhanced version of the Parent Trap.
“Hello Simulacrum, is your master coming soon?” Mallory stated.
“What? I’m the real Cass,” the Simulacrum said with faux indignancy.
“No, you’re not.”
“Yes, I am.”
“Look, I know it’s not you, because you aren’t causing any problems.”
“Oh, good, so you aren’t here to bust me?”
“Wait, what?”
“You are just here on a fishing expedition, trying to see if I’ll self-incriminate, smart. But, know I haven’t done a thing all day that you can prove I did.” The Simulacrum said, and after hearing that logic Mallory just paused.
Then she looked at the Simulacrum, and for a moment she truly wondered if this was the real Cass.
Had Cass gotten better about hiding her activities? That would be the truly frightening process, if Cass somehow managed to alter or even change the details available to her on her quest panel. Then realizing that this was her trump card that she had never revealed to anyone, she felt it was still applicable. For Cass wouldn’t know that Mallory could track her quests and then try to ambush her upon her returns, right?
Then again this was Cass.
As soon as Mallory had that last thought, she moved closer to the floating pixie and stared at her giant emerald green orbs that served as her eyes and for a moment, she wondered if this was Cass.
“Oh shoot, you’re going to pinch my cheeks again, aren’t you.” Cass began, before she Teleported away.
Poof.
Cass appeared a few feet away clutching her cute little dimple cheeks with her little, colossal pixie hands in a way that was almost too cute.
“No, wait.” Mallory began, seeing that Cass was about to run off. “I need to talk to you about Maranda and Penelope.”
Hearing that Cass just paused and looked at Mallory, “oh, that is fine, it’s almost time that they got back anyways.”
“What?” Mallory asked.
But then the scamp of a Simulacrum just smiled widely and created a rip in space, revealing the deck of a floating ship, Penelope, Jhonny, Maranda, Cass, and Zero all free floating with a ghostly background. Just seeing the fleeting vapors of a gloomy open sky, Mallory knew that she was looking at people who were in the Arcanarus Tower.
Seeing Zero free floating around, Mallory had a eureka moment as she looked to the arms of the Simulacrum near her, then back to the other side to see that neither had a tattoo of resting Zero.
“Ah, hah! Your Zero Tattoos, are still a tell that you are just a Simulacrum.” Mallory stated.
“That is hurtful,” the Simulacrum said, then as she spoke, Mallory was shocked to see that a glowing image of the spirit dragon was beginning to appear on the scamp’s arm. Then quickly turning back she saw the real Zero actually melding into the arm of Cass, which then began to be mirrored on the Simulacrum’s arm that was still holding the portal open next to Mallory.
While this was happening, Penelope, Jhonny, and Maranda all began walking out.
Seeing her guild members come back, Mallory found herself asking.
“So how was it?”
The three just looked to each other before shrugging.
That is when the Simulacrum began speaking.
“Well, we have good news, bad news, and no news for you.”
“What?”
Hearing the Simulacrum speak, Mallory turned to the others, only to see that the portal was now closing, leaving behind Cass. Or did she do a switch when Mallory wasn’t paying attention? Did Mallory miss the slight flash of energy? No, she couldn’t have, this had to be the Simulacrum still, right?
“Well the no news is something we can’t tell you about.” Penelope stated, apparently picking up on the confusion.
Hearing that, Mallory assumed that this had to do with the random emergency quest she too received, the “Never Ask, Talk, Or Get Dr. Cassiopeia Spiritlight To Explain or Recreate In Any Way What She Did to get to Floor 300 of the Arcanarus Tower.”
“Okay, I understand that, but now what is this about the good and bad news?” Mallory asked, turning her attention to Penelope. Unfortunately, all Penelope could do was just shrug as she clearly had no clue what Cass was talking about.
“The good news is that Penelope will never have to sit through the Royal Bloodline classes anymore, as she is now a Royal Bloodline holder.” Cass, or maybe her Simulacrum stated.
“Yeah, I was aware, but now the bad news?” Mallory asked, wondering if there was something important that she had somehow missed.
“The bad news is that while Penelope is out of your Royal Bloodline classes, Maranda here will be taking her place.” Cass stated and then pointed at Maranda who all but glowed.
“Okay,” Mallory began, thinking about the words and seeing that both Penelope and Maranda both glowed with an extra surge of power. In fact, she was so lost in that understanding that she almost missed the key words that the scamp had spoken.
“Wait? My Royal Bloodline classes?”
“Glad you agree they are yours.” Cass stated, before promptly Teleporting away.
Hearing that, Mallory realized that she had been speaking to the real Cass. Or at least she hoped so, otherwise her life as a guild leader would get a lot more complicated.