Sparrow led one band of ninjas and Hummingbird led another. They ran on top of the roof tops deadly silent and completely hidden in the black sky.
‘Descend.’ Sparrow motioned to Hummingbird with a nod. Hummingbird nodded in agreement, they moved closer to the edge of the tiled roof and jumped down to the edge of the ceremony grounds entrance. Hummingbird’s group immediately began to attack the guards who stood at the perimeter of the grounds entrance. Sparrow’s group jumped on to the wires crisscrossing above the ceremony grounds which were holding the candle lights up. The wires trembled slightly by the impact of their jump but remained surprising still. Ninja arts enable Sparrow to run on a right rope without weighing down on it or causing it to shake.
Hummingbird’s group was quick to finish out any soldiers at the entrance. They now waited for the signal from Sparrow. Sparrow reached closer to the ceremony platform where Weed had just finished the ceremony. Richard had just returned to his seat which was near the podium. Sparrow smiled at his luck, Richard had just saved him the time and effort to look for him. Sparrow nodded towards Richard and the ninjas jumped down.
The guests were startled to suddenly see ninjas amongst them. Richard too was surprised to find himself suddenly surrounded by ninjas.
“Who are you?” Richard demanded to know as he drew out his sword.
‘What is he an idiot?’ Sparrow wondered. “Who would ask a masked man for their identity? Isn’t the purpose of the mask defeated then?’’ Sparrow countered.
“Fair enough I suppose. Then how dare you defile this sacred tea party!” Richard argued back.
Sparrow quickly glanced around. No matter how he looked at it ; it wasn’t remotely close to resembling a tea party. “You sure this is a tea party? It looks more like a dinner ball.” Sparrow replied as he and his comrades began circling Arthur and Richard.
Arthur too had his sword drawn out but his face revealed no hint of shock. He didn’t even volunteer himself to protect his lord. Richard noticed but assumed Arthur was too shocked to even show emotion or move. Richard could imagine the poor chap worrying about his head since he was in charge of the security.
Sparrow moved in first and attacked Richard, the other ninjas take on approaching guards. In the midst of the confusion, Richard lost sight of Arthur and wondered where his vassal had disappeared off too. ‘Must be fending for his life.’
Richard cursed the fact that he only a rapier for today’s event. It was fashionable to wear so and thus he did, had he known any better he would have carried a proper sword. A rapier would normally have been a flimsy choice of weapon against kunai but Richard was able to manipulate it more cunningly than Sparrow anticipated. He reinforced the weapon with his element providing it more sturdiness when required and removed the reinforcement when he needed flexibility. Richard’s grasp on his elemental affinity displayed his mastery in the field of combat.
“Not bad stupid Lord.” Sparrow commented as he created a tiny water barrier to hold back the rapier from hurting him.
“I must say I am surprised that the Aqua Empire decided to invade its stronger rival the Wind Empire.” Richard replied as he punched a ninja of his fellow soldier. “I really was expecting the raging Fire Empire…”
“Surprise…” Sparrow replied as he cut open several flasks of water. The more water available to use the stronger Sparrow’s attacks became.
“Yes…surprised indeed.” Richard said as he upped the pace of his own attack.
Sparrow was finding it increasingly difficult to cope with Richard’s attacks. Richard’s elemental class, level and elemental affinity (Wind is greater than Water) were all above Sparrow's.
“Help me!” Sparrow called out to his comrades. At once two ninjas left their posts and began helping Sparrow. It took all three ninjas’ combination attacks to hold Richard back, even then it was evident that Richard was stronger. Just when it seemed that the trio were done for it Richard’s arm froze in mid air…the trio jumped back…Arthur interfered.
“Take care of the others. You all are no match for him….” Arthur instructed.
Richard stood frozen in shock as he took time to absorb the betrayal.
Sparrow and the others joined Hummingbird who had begun her attack when Sparrow had descended upon Richard.
“AHHH!!!” A noble woman screamed as she was stabbed in the back. She turned grey and disappeared into a puff of grey smoke. Hummingbird triggered the chaos. Suddenly the guests realized this wasn’t some circus show or an entertaining event this was very much real! Soldiers who had been sleeping or too dazed watching the Lord fight were suddenly brought to reality with the woman’s scream. The pulled out their swords but only to be put to permanent sleep with the ninja’s fatal strikes. Even nobles who were part of the coup were being targeted. To the ninjas it didn’t matter who was an ally or an enemy, their instructions were to kill everyone.
The guild leaders pulled out their weapons from their inventory as the nobles began to rush towards the exit.
‘This is it.’ They thought to themselves. “A COUP FOR POWER!” One of them screamed as he slashed his long axe at oncoming nobles. The other guild masters rallied behind him and attacked the nobles. It was a complete massacre. The nobles never say it coming; the ones whom they trusted and expected to protect them would turn on them.
In all fairness to the players, they may have acted on the surface as if they were supporting the nobles coup but secretly they were sick of being slaves to the nobles wishes and desires. Nobles had greatly over estimated the loyalty of players and guilds, expecting them to do everything and anything they wanted. However nobles alone weren’t to be blamed, players were responsible for bringing this type of relationship between them. Players were in a rush to grow more powerful and from everything they had learnt in previous games was that sucking up to NPCswas a very rewarding experience. It is true that there were plenty of rewards but Elementarem Vim was a little twisted. Noble NPCs weren’t just offering quests and money, they were demanding services for every little thing. The nobles of RREV were fully capable of blackmailing guilds and parties into doing everything for them.
‘If you want to serve me and benefit, then do as I say or I replace you.’ Was the most common threat. There were even stories of strong parties being picked up from the streets and being forced to serve nobles. Not that players minded it but imagine being called back to serve a noble coffee during a hunting spree? Some players were called back to help nobles pick a dress for a party while they were on an important quest. Worse still relationship points would start falling rapidly if you were logged off and didn’t appear when they called. Sure, players and guilds could have stopped serving but they risked being replaced by new players and guilds. Nobles poured money into the guild’s coffers at the price of trivial favours.
Players from Lee Hyun’s time would have quietly gone along with such a relationship without complaining however the new gamers were different. With games offering more liberty (like AI NPCs – RREV having most NPCs as independent AIs) and becoming more life like (being able to create items and weapons from the real world), new theories on how to beat games emerged. The best example of this is monster farming. Athenos in particular suffers from monster farming, where strong guilds / alliances have taken control of entire planets and harvest monsters to level up. Even Royal Road had become a victim of monster farming. A device was created and timed to attack monster spawn points the moment a monster was created. The end result? Players could be leagues away and continued levelling up as their weapons were killing monsters. RREV was amongst the new generation of games which had done away with spawn points and other game elements which players often took advantage off. Monster population grew through mating etc. So if players wiped out a local monster population they wouldn’t come back. Similarly any attempts to farm them, would domesticate them and result in lowered EXP. Similarly, Nobles personality had been tweaked to make it harder for players to take advantage of them. In the original game, nobles and NPCs only cared about getting the quest done. Now, nobles and NPCs cared about quests but while getting the best of players they could. Only in RREV had NPC’s had been given the powerful tool to lie and cheat players. Thus, making the game significantly harder to beat.
Stolen novel; please report.
Hence, players changed their tactics. If monsters couldn’t be farmed then their population could be controlled. The biggest guilds checked the local monster population, only selectively capturing and killing the strongest monsters. Their tactics to handle nobles varied; some would give gifts to amend relationships and others would provide excuses…the players of Lavias would have continued on this path had it not been for the quest they received. They were all contacted by someone from inside the Lord’s manor to overthrow the Lord of Lavias and kill the nobles. The players agreed immediately since they would acquire all wealth of the nobles from the coup and better still they would be supporting the new Lord of Lavias. This implied there would be no future consequences for their actions. After several meetings with other guilds and investigations into establishing the identity of the new Lord. The guilds jointly agreed to upsurp the nobles. The greed to become more powerful and beat the system…beat Lee Hyun blinded them from the hideousness and the gruesomeness of the acts they were committing.
Weed’s plan to only allow select guild masters to the party only slightly upset the initial plans. If the invites had gone to only the powerful guilds then all guild masters would have participated in the coup. However, by mixing it in with weaker and lesser known guilds, not all guild masters agreed to the idea of the coup. The result? Few guild masters were attacking the coup players. They were in the minority and defeat was inevitable but they chose to be morally right even in a fictional world. Their actions would in complete certainty result in their deaths but they were glad they would be able to save some lives; even if they were annoying noble NPC lives.
The small resistance of guild masters didn’t last long and there was a mad rush to get out of the slaughter house. The ninjas were pressing in on one end and guild masters on the other. The nobles had no way to escape. Those who weren’t victim to blades of players or ninjas were curshed in the resulting stampede and chaos.
Weed watched the horror unfold from the distance. He knew if he got to close he too would be killed. He didn’t understand what drove the players to commit such acts of atrocities but he didn’t judge them too quickly. Weed was indifferent to the situation; he was only thinking of his own interests not saving the lives for a noble cause.
‘Tch…they have planned this out well.’ He thought to himself. Weed was quick enough to conclude Arthur was responsible for the coup since he would stand most to gain from this unless it was a players coup, a scenario which he doubted. There many things about Arthur which made Weed suspect him like not sharing security coverage details…having to serve a boss like Richard…and information of the coup came from Arthur alone. Weed was a hundred percent sure Arthur was heading the coup…it fitted so perfectly. Weed felt angry at himself for not seeing it sooner. The only underlying question which bothered him was why was this all happening now?
‘Why not six months ago? Why not one hundred years ago? Why now? What makes today the most important day to unleash a coup? What are you hiding Arthur Ireka inside those dirty sleeves…why are you so confident you will succeed?’ Weed wondered. There were bound to be repercussions for Arthur’s actions. Lavias is only a small city part of a larger Kingdom and a stronghold for the Wind Empire. An event such as this would not escape investigations and scrutiny. It then struck Weed. ‘unless there is no evidence left…with Arthur losing his elite task force he would stand vindicated. The Water Empire would be held responsible for their involvement in the coup…I guess that explains the water affinity ninjas…damn…and the players don’t look the least bit surprised with their involvement either…If none of the nobles survive then no one would question his authority....I guess it’s a total win win for everyone but the King and the nobles who were duped. So much for sucking up to Richard…’
Weed lamented that he sided with the wrong side (being the losing side). ‘I should have seen it coming…The question is where should I go from here....help Richard? Be part of the coup? Or steal the dragon blades?’
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Authors Note:
1. So yeah, taking in feedback continuously and changing it to accommodate what everyone wants (me and readers). I couldn't suddenly write everything from Weed's POV so that happens towards the end, where the focus shifts to him.
2. Weed IS getting a push towards better!! Just keep reading in the next 2-3 chapters will turn the situation around drastically. I think I gave a major bit of the clue away in the last line of this chapter.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Next ChapterPrevious ChapterTable of Contents & UpdatesRoyal Road Elementarem Vim - Infodex