Weaver walked up to the large doors of the guildhall and pushed. The doors yielded only slightly before jerking back at him and Sinnamon watched as he stumbled from the unexpected resistance.
“Someone jammed the door?” Sinnamon asked.
“No, I think someone’s blocking it.” He pushed again and the door inched open a bit further.
He gestured for Sinnamon to slip through and she did. The main lobby was completely packed with players. They were yelling and talking over each other, though all were generally looking in the direction of a tall, thin Runic Elf with pale blue skin and dark violet tattoos that covered his exposed skin.
Weaver had knocked someone to the ground with his forced entry and Sinnamon helped the man to his feet as she pulled the door open wider for Weaver to enter.
“What’s going on? Why are there so many people here?” Sinnamon asked.
“LP Seshat’s hiding the Serethi queen in their guild room. We all saw her come in and the Royal Guard keeps trying to push us away. Bunch of pompous jackasses.” the man answered.
“So, what’s the problem? I’m sure the queen heard about their planned meeting with all the guilds and wants to send a representative,” Sinnamon offered.
“You don’t think it's odd that the queen of all the Serethi is here two days after we all got kidnapped and dumped here? They own these damn cities and their damn portals, they know how to get us home. They should be telling all of us.”
Sinnamon paused. His line of reasoning wasn’t all that far from Wisteria’s own. And he might’ve even been right. But if that were true, then maybe the queen was simply using the guild meeting as a way to coordinate the information with everyone.
Someone in the crowd screamed and suddenly everyone began running towards Sinnamon, Weaver, and the doors behind them. Weaver grabbed Sinnamon’s waist and jumped inhumanly high into the air, catching a chandelier.
“Look down there, by the counters,” Weaver said.
Lying in a pool of his own blood was a Serethi man. A dagger was sticking out of his chest. A medic was leaning over the wounded man and Sinnamon couldn’t tell if he was even still alive from this distance.
Just ahead of the pair, one of the Royal Guard held a man to the ground. His name, Silk, was written in the crimson red of a player who had attacked an NPC.
“You, bring that Guardian over here.”Shouted one of the guards, his armor decorated slightly more ornately than those around him.
The man pinning Silk heaved him to his feet and dragged him over to the guard giving the orders. The guard touched Silk and then turned to the guildhall’s Caer fragment and touched it as well.
“You have lost your privilege of traveling through this city’s Caer fragment,” the guard said. He turned to the other guards. “We’re locking down the guildhall, move!”
The other guards in the lobby quickly fanned out, forcing players out of the building. Some resisted, but the nearly four hundred level difference between the two sides made that resistance futile. The ease with which they dragged those who refused to leave peacefully left Sinnamon in awe of whatever magic powered their ability to scale to such high levels.
“I think that’s our cue,” Sinnamon said to Weaver.
Weaver let go of the chandelier and grunted as they hit the ground. One of the guards ushering the crowd out turned in their direction.
“You two have to leave. Now,” She said, pointing to the door.
Sinnamon glanced over at the Runic elf and caught his name, Prax. He was the person Halzy had told them to find.
“We’re with Prax, Wisteria sent for us,” Sinnamon said.
The guard paused and turned back to Prax. “Is this true?”
Prax walked over to them. “Sinnamon, Weaver. Yes, yes they are with me. Come, follow me.”
Prax led them away from the retreating crowd and towards a row of doors behind the massive caer fragment. The doors slid open revealing an elevator.
“Will that man be alright?” Sinnamon asked as she entered the elevator.
Prax looked back towards the lobby. “He wasn’t dead. I trust in Araedi’s medics. They can deal with theirs far better than we can. Even as a Druid myself.”
Prax held his hand up to the focusing stone in the center of the wall and ran his fingers along an invisible screen. After a moment, there was a soft hiss as the doors closed and the floor shuddered. A notification flashed across Sinnamon’s eyes, alerting her that she had entered LP Seshat’s private room within the guild building. Focusing on the notification brought up a brief description of the guild and a list of its members.
The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
Sinnamon had heard of LP Seshat before. It was a member of the larger collection of special interest guilds under the same banner, LP, and was specifically for those players over the age of fifty.
Prax pulled them through a hallway, stopping by a pair of Araedi’s Royal Guards. He nodded at them and they opened the door.
In the room, Wisteria Leothalis and several other people sat around a conference table. At the head were two regally dressed women. The woman on Wisteria’s right was the reigning monarch of the Serethi, Queen Sorah. The woman beside her was Araedi’s governor, Raizel.
The queen and governor acknowledged Sinnamon and Weaver with polite waves and Wisteria gestured for them to take a seat beside her.
“Thank you for meeting with us, though I wish we could have done so under more pleasant circumstances.” Queen Sorah’s words were clearly enunciated in a manner Sinnamon could only describe as perfect. “Miss Wisteria has explained to me the circumstances the Guardians find themselves in. I sympathize with those who feel they have been wronged or harmed, but I cannot agree with the means by which they lash out in response. For that, I thank you for your help in continuing to protect those unable to protect themselves even in the midst of your own crisis.”
“Thank you, your Majesty,” Weaver said formally. He paused and looked around the room. “But, if I can be frank, we didn’t really do anything. We met with the general of the army in the village north of here and he raised a good point. We can’t do anything with the people who decide to kill or commit other crimes. Back where we’re from, we had jails and even the death penalty. But those don’t really work on us here. Not when we can just leave any prison we’re put in or can’t even die.”
“Miss Wisteria and those Guardians in the main lobby have made that abundantly clear to me,” Governor Raizel said with only a hint of something like annoyance as she glanced in Wisteria’s direction. Apparently Weaver had brought up a sore subject she and Wisteria had already discussed. “Though I fear you all give us too much credit. Though we have lived in these cities a long time and you all bear a strong connection with the crystals at their hearts, we did not build them. We know very little of how they function beyond the services my people provide to you through them. We could not help you deal with the criminals of your kind any more than Ilsylvania can.”
“That isn’t exactly true, Governor,” Queen Sorah said. “You haven’t held your position long enough to be read in on this information. I had hoped to discuss it with you privately. But these are interesting times. And I can see the need for further cooperation with our Guardian allies.”
“Not everything within Araedi was lost when the barriers protecting the city were restored.” Queen Sorah paused and looked around the room.
She was referring to the campaign to retake Araedi from a treasonous faction some five hundred years ago. The scars of that campaign were visible around the city as the perfectly preserved damage that had been delivered upon the city when her defensive barrier had been temporarily disabled.
Queen Sorah made a small blue crystal appear in her hands. “We believe Lohk dropped this when he and the entire city’s original population disappeared. This was what allowed him such extensive control over the city and it has continued to allow us to control some aspects of the city in much the same way you Guardians can control some of the magic dungeons and even some of the buildings you’ve been able to purchase now. This has been a closely guarded secret of my and all of the city-states’ governors’ predecessors for the last five hundred years.”
The crystal floated above Sorah’s hands and then split into two crystals the same size as the single one they’d been a moment before. She handed one of them to Raizel.
“I hold the master key that links all of the city-states together. I have created this copy which allows you control over Araedi as is your right and duty as governor.” Sorah turned to Wisteria, “I share this with you with the hope that you realize the gravity of this situation. If Ilsylvania knew we held more control over these cities than we led on, it could be sufficient to reignite tensions between our people.”
“Why exactly would it do that?” Wisteria Leothalis asked.
“Because the treaty between our peoples and the de-escalation it governs between us hinged on that secret.”
“This gets better and better. On top of everything else going on, I now have to manage two squabbling empires.” Wisteria rested her head in her hands after the envoy of serethi left the room.
One of the men who had been sitting next to Wisteria, a tall, olive-skinned man in a black and red coat like something out of The Pirates of the Caribbean, turned to her and laughed. “Come on, Wis, you know you love the challenge. This is the most interesting thing that’s happened to you in a century and you love all the politicking and the challenge.”
“I do, but that does not mean I am not allowed to complain,” Wisteria said ruefully. She turned to Sinnamon and Weaver. “Thank you for coming in today. You have helped me hammer home a point the governor has so far refused to acknowledge.”
“Does the idea that the people in this city have a way to lock us up forever?” Sinnamon asked. It sure bothered her, especially considering how the Royal Guard already had the ability to outlevel any of them and stop them from entering the city through its Caer Fragment.
“It scares the hell out of me,” Wisteria answered. “But do you know what scares me even more? The answer to the question no one is asking. Someone gave hundreds of thousands, if not millions of us the power of gods with the snap of their fingers. If I have learned anything in my one hundred and three years it is that power does not beget power without a cost. So then, what is that cost?”
***
Sinnamon thought about Wisteria's question as she and Weaver left LP Seshat’s Guildroom. She didn’t particularly like the secrets regarding the extent of the “caretakers” control over the player cities, or city-states as the Serethi called them, and it made it hard for her to want to trust them. Especially considering the trove of history found within the building she and Weaver had purchased.
Much of that still needed sorting. Sinnamon had hoped to bring it up, but a private conversation between her and Weaver using the telepathic comm system that had once been a part of the game had them in agreement that it was better to hold off until they could be sure they could really trust the Serethi queen.
“I think I need to do something to take my mind off the last day,” Weaver said in the elevator.
“Explore a dungeon?” Sinnamon suggested.
There were a dozen well known instanced dungeons around Araedi. Most were lower level and were also well mapped, Sinnamon actually figured it might be exactly what she needed to get her that next 25 experience points to her next level.
“I still have my old sword I can use to tank with.” Weaver started to say something else, but the growling of his stomach cut him off.
“Lunch, then dungeon,” Sinnamon said with a laugh.