Chapter 273: Welcome to Stormtop
Makaroth’s airship had arrived at the Stormtop Skyport - their airship bearing the banners of the Sages of Destiny guild had been tied off to a pier, and the members of his guild began funneling down it towards a welcoming party consisting of Yumily and her companions, and Daehyun and his highest level guild members.
Before words were even exchanged with Daehyun and Makaroth, Makaroth could see him smiling excitedly in his direction at the end of the pier, anticipating their first words with one another. Both of them and Yumily, had their live streams active. Yumily’s viewership was sitting at 7 million, while Makaroth’s at 18, both dwarfing Daehyun completely.
“Welcome to Stormtop. It’s a pleasure to have you here!” Daehyun cheered excitedly at him once he’d got into earshot.
“It’s a pleasure to be here. I never imagined the city would look like this…” Makaroth motioned to the walls and buildings beyond Daehyun. “The top of a mountain… absolutely incredible.” He said with wide eyes of genuine amazement. “What’s it like? Is the air thin up here?”
“No, we’re protected by the god of thunder himself.” Daehyun smiled back. “I’m sure you’ve seen plenty of amazing sights like this already though, in your vast travels and many adventures…”
“This game never ceases to amaze. Always new places to discover.”
“I agree. This city looks beautiful.” Lilya smiled.
“Oh, I believe this is the first time you are meeting as well. Is that right, Yumily?” Daehyun motioned to her as she stood in a beautiful pink and white traditional Japanese kimono with flower petals - no doubt made personally for her by Yuki. She turned to look at Makaroth for the first time, and he looked upon her beautiful smile.
“Yes. It's nice to meet you.” Yumily smiled and bowed politely towards him, signaling her two companions at her side Kenji and Kaito to do the same which they promptly did.
“You as well. You’re a huge hit among our guildmates. Lilya listens to your music all the time.” Makaroth smiled.
“I love it. I’m a huge fan!” Lilya squeaked excitedly.
“Thank you for your support.” Yumily bowed again.
“So.” Calikgos cleared his throat. “There’s a rumor your forges are starting to fill with Mithral?”
“You’ve heard, huh?” Daehyun grinned deviously, causing Yumily, Kaito and Kenji to have alarmed expressions.
“You discovered how to find it like Aegis?” Kenji asked curiously, but the simple mention of his name caused Calikgos to wince and Makaroth to squint.
“Turns out that several of their guild leaders had a falling one. One of them by the name of Artaphernes was banished, and relocated here. He told us the secret to Mithral that he’d learned.”
“What? Why would he do that?” Yumily asked worriedly.
“I wonder.” Lilya smirked. Yumily didn’t bother asking further, she could tell by the reactions of everyone present that some form of foul play was involved.
“Well, nevermind that. Our famous number one blacksmith is already expecting you guys, but we oughta wait until Feng arrives. In the meantime,” Daehyun eagerly motioned towards the gates leading into the city from the Skyport, where crowds of players were being held back by a line of guards and eagerly calling out at Makaroth, waving their hands excitedly, “A lot of your fans have been eagerly awaiting your arrival.”
“Of course! It’s my first time visiting this city, so I’m excited to meet all sorts of new people! Hi everyone!” Makaroth cheered in a friendly voice, speaking loud enough that he could be heard by the crowd of onlookers. This caused them to scream even louder, though some were audibly calling out for Yumily as well. Yumily hesitantly turned to face them alongside Makaroth and put on her best smile, waving politely alongside him.
With this, Daehyun took the lead and marched them towards the gates, having his guards part the crowds so that both Yumily and Makaroth could make their way through. The cheers became deafening, and Kenji and Kaito made sure to stand close behind Yumily and keep an eye on anyone reaching out to shake her hand. Makaroth on the other side had Synopse, Lilya and Calikgos watching his back while the rest of his guild members hung back near the Airship.
For Synopse, though, he had other things on his mind. The gladiator arena, a large grand structure with gigantic walls, towered over the other immediate structures upon entering the city. It caught his eye immediately, and the daunting task he had set before him in just under 2 days time was the only thing he could think about. He tuned out the sound of the cheering and without realizing it, walked slower than the others and slowly fell behind.
The crowds of fans barely paid mind to this, though. All of their focus was on the stars Makaroth and Yumily, and they moved along with them as the entourage led by Daehyun moved further into the city.
The arena was beautiful, it reminded Synopse of ancient greece architecture, something only seen in history books or other games themed around such things. It was very different from the European styled structures he was used to in Savringard which he spent most of his time, or even the Eastern style architecture within Lanusk. He found himself playing out scenarios that he’d practiced of upcoming matchups, considering his bracket opponents, and continued to walk slower and slower.
He was only knocked out of his trance when suddenly he felt a light tugging on the back of his deep blue, high quality void silk robes. He quickly turned to see a young human girl, player, staring up at him with big glowing eyes. On her back she was wielding a staff, with [Cinderella - Level 13] floating above her head.
“Yes?” Synopse asked politely as he smiled down at the little girl, seeing her basic beginner equipment.
“Hi Mr. Synopse!” She smiled shyly. “Could I…” awkwardly breaking eye contact with him, “could I have an autograph?”
“Oh. Yes, of course.” Synopse turned to look ahead and saw how far behind he’d fallen from Makaroth’s entourage. “I will ask Makaroth for one right away.” He quickly said, preparing to march forward and watch up.
“Oh, no sir.” A man spoke up, stepping out from under the overhanging of a nearby building. [Jekro - Level 30] stood above his head. “Sorry, this is my daughter. She’s been a huge fan of you, she’s shy but was hoping to have an autograph of yours.” The man explained politely.
“Ah, I see.” Synopse smiled. “Sorry, I’m not used to people wanting autographs from me.” He turned to smile at the little girl once more. “Absolutely. You’re a fan of mine?” He added in surprise.
“Mhm. I like the colors of your magic! They’re really pretty!” She added.
“Aha.” He smirked as he pulled out a parchment of a low level spell scroll that the girl could use. “Here, this scroll will let you cast an incantation of the Fireball spell. I’ll sign it for you, but if you ever get in trouble, don’t be afraid to use it to blow up some bad monsters with pretty colors, okay?” Synopse explained as he pulled out a magic quill and quickly scrawled his signature over the scroll casing, then handed it out to the little girl.
She took it from his hands with large glowing eyes, twinkles in them as she pulled it into her chest and hugged it tightly. She quickly turned from him and ran towards her dad, who Synopse noticed had two Thunderhounds seated on either side of him, both NPC dogs with yellow spiky fur. A rare breed of dog that Synopse knew only could be found on Tarolas, but were such good pets for beast taming classes that they were sold to players on other islands at a high price.
“Impressive pets.” Synopse motioned to them, turning his attention back to the father.
“Yup. I’ve made quite a pretty penny raising them, but these two are my best boys. Make more money from this shop than I did from my real job, so, doing this full time.” Jekro explained proudly as he ruffled the heads of the two NPC dogs who barked proudly from his side.
“Do you mind?” Synopse excitedly stepped forward.
“Go ahead.” Jekro grinned as he saw the eager look on Synopse’s face to pet them. Seeing that both hounds were elite, he was a bit anxious on how they’d react, but both remained seated obediently as Synopse began scratching around their ears. He could feel them start leaning into his hand as he continued, and couldn’t help but chuckle.
“Y’know, I think I mighta picked the Beastmaster class if I didn’t go to wizard as my starter class. I love the animals in this game.”
“They’re great. I’m hoping to start taming some of the more exotic ones after I reach intermediate.”
“If you’ve got these guys this well trained, I’m sure you’ll be able to wrangle some tougher beasts. I hear gryphons are becoming quite popular, due to a certain streamer.”
“Hah. Yep. Bit too low level to raise them yet, though. If you ever want to buy a pup to just have as a companion, let me know. I’ve got a batch who are almost ready for adoption.”
“I might take you up on-” Synopse was interrupted by the blowing of a loud stretched out horn coming from the skies to the west, over the Skyport. He, the girl, the hounds and the man all turned to look up and see five Airships soaring through the skies towards the Skyport, parting the clouds. The large red symbol of the Vindicators guild was visibly painted on the mast of all five ships.
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“Jeez, he always has to make an entrance.” Synopse sighed as the sound cleared from the warhorn of the Vindicators.
“Did he bring his entire guild?” Jekro asked in disbelief at the number of Airships arriving.
“Believe it or not, that’s less than half of them.” Synopse smirked, causing Jerko to chuckle.
“Damn zerg guilds.” Jerko laughed.
“I better go. Nice meeting you.” Synopse waved to the man and little girl, then gave the hounds one last head scratch.
“Thanks for being so kind, she’ll cherish that autograph more than you’ll ever know.” Jerko smiled and waved as Synopse turned to head towards Makaroth’s group, only to see Calikgos approaching.
“There you are. Worried you got lost.” Calikgos smiled at him, eying the shop with the dogs sitting out front. He immediately gave a knowing eye roll. “Come on. With Feng showing up, it’s time to visit the smiths. Daehyun’s gonna take us to the city under the mountain where all the forges are.”
“You need me to join in on that?” Synopse asked hesitantly. “I’d like to run a bit more practice with my team before the matches tomorrow.”
“We need you to give specifications to the smiths on what mithral equipment your party will need. Some last minute upgrades wouldn’t hurt, right?”
“I suppose.” Synopse shrugged.
“Come, let’s not get left behind. Don’t wanna get lost in this place.” Calikgos rushed Synopse to follow behind him as he quickly walked ahead. Synopse stopped to give one more long look up at the visible Gladiator arena before following behind him.
“All major players are here.” Mikael declared as he watched his livestream viewer to see Feng’s Airship reaching the Stormtop Skyport. The players wearing uniform matching Vindicator outfits began funneling off of the ships and into the port and city. “That’s a lot of vindicators.”
“It is.” Jeremax commented as he too was watching the livestream. They, alongside all Schadenfreude guild members and Ryner, were standing within the Temple of Zeus, alongside many high level Zeus worshiping NPCs. The temple had an open ceiling, it was a large flat white tiled floor stretched out in a rectangular shape with two rows of pillars going from one end to the other.
One end of the open-aired temple held a large throne, with a shrine in front of it. On the throne sat the [Great Prophet of Zeus(Elite) - Level 150]. He wore white and yellow robes and had so much white hair on his dwarven face that the only thing visible were his eyes and wrinkly nose.
All of the players were on edge, as were the NPCs, standing around the edge of the temple looking down at the surrounding city streets. The temple, despite having no walls or roof, was built up on an elevated chunk of rocky land, making it a decent vantage point to see over the surrounding city buildings. It wasn’t tall enough to see over the western walls leading to the Skyport, but they could still see the tops of the Vindicator masts as they arrived at the port.
“With that many players, I really think we’ll be fine.” Jeremax let out a sigh of relief.
“Speak honestly with yourself, Jeremax.” Mikael turned to him and gave him a serious glare. “We’ve fought against Seraxus nonstop and seen the atrocities he was willing to commit against NPCs over the last few months. He’s done everything possible just to get his hand on more souls for that sword.”
“Yeah, but, attacking here is basically suicide, right?” Jeremax replied. “He wouldn’t risk losing the sword.”
“I think it’s the sword that’s going to make him attack, regardless. I told you before, right? Everytime I get close to that thing, I can hear it whispering shit into his ears. It’s manipulating him and egging him on.”
“So it’s the sword that’s making him evil?” Mightymira confirmed.
“No.” Ryner replied on Mikael’s behalf. “Sure, the Sword is programmed to egg him on and make him evil, but in the end, it’s just a game. He could put the sword down at any time. He’s making these choices.” Ryner clenched his fists. “I can’t accept this…” He shook his head to himself.
“What?” Mikael asked.
“This outcome. After all our effort, it just goes to waste due to the same people that caused the issue in the first place.” Ryner replied.
“What issue? What do you mean?” Mikael asked for confirmation as the others looked at him confused. Ryner, realizing he was speaking a little too heatedly, quickly broke himself out of his angered trance to meet their eyes.
“Nothing. Nevermind, I’m just frustrated. You’re right. I don’t think he’s going to do anything but attack…”
“We’re at least ready.” Mightymira tried to reassure him.
“Yeah…” Ryner nodded hesitantly, deep in thought for a moment. “I’ll go check on my Airship really quickly. Be back in a bit.”
“Okay.” Mikael nodded. Ryner then hastily headed out of the temple, as Mikael turned to the Great Prophet and the two exchanged anxious looks with one another briefly. Mikael wasn’t sure how long he’d need to wait for Ryner to return, but as the Vindicators flooded into the city, the Skyport became calm.
Watching the live streams of Yumily, Daehyun, Makaroth, and Feng allowed Mikael to track the movement of the major players within Tarolas. After greeting all of their fans, Daehyun escorted them using the dwarven rail system into the lower city of the Iron Pillars, a large underground cavern held up by 12 pillars made of pure iron built around the outskirts of it. At the very center, Mikael knew the greatest forges in all of the Shattered World to exist, where Daehyun was to be escorting the players to meet with the world famous blacksmiths.
Along the way, Makaroth was speaking excitedly with Synopse about what sort of Mithral equipment they should request, while Feng was showing similar levels of excitement. Mikael almost got caught up in the flow of their streams completely as he watched, completely neglecting his own.
“Hey, we’ve got arrivals.” Migthymira broke him out of watching the stream by gesturing to the stairs leading into the temple. Mikael quickly closed out of his livestream viewer to see several familiar Elite NPCs climbing up the staircase. “
“Those are the elite NPC mercenaries from Ryner’s Airship. I guess he sent them here to help defend Zeus?” Jeremax said as he recognized them. The NPCs quickly began greeting the Schadenfreude members they recognized, mixing in with the guild of holy players like long lost friends.
“Hm…” Mikael pondered for a moment as he saw the NPCs mingling, until he spotted the elite Chef NPCs arriving as well. “No, that’s not what’s happening.” Mikael’s eyes went wide with realization.
----------------------------------------
“Linda, I need a favor.” Ryan was leaning over his co-workers Simbox with the greenlight on top lit. He was pressing her Simbox communicator to speak with her as she was currently in a simulation.
“What’s up?” Linda replied from inside
“You got any active tickets at the moment?”
“None that are urgent. I can pause. You need a GM’s assistance on a cybersecurity matter?”
“Yeah. I think a certain player might be exploiting something in regards to transport speed on an Airship.”
“Okay, I can locate them and confirm…” Linda replied.
“I need to track some things on their movement from my Simbox. Can you relay the location to me in my simulation?” Ryan explained.
“Sure, just log in and we’ll link up.”
“Okay, but I’ll need to be logged in to my game character to track them. Can you link it up to my game character, Ryner?” Ryan explained. Linda hesitated at this.
“Huh? I don’t get it.” Linda asked after a pause.
“It’s urgent.”
“You want me to give you information on another players co-ordinates from my GM account to an in-game player account? I could get into a lot of trouble for that.”
“You won’t get in trouble, I promise. It’s part of my special assignment.” Ryan replied quickly. “If anything comes back to you, just point them to me. It’ll be fine.” Ryan reassured her.
“Alright…” Linda replied slowly.
“Great, I’ll log into my character Ryner now. Link up immediately.” Ryner pulled away from her Simbox and quickly hopped back into his own. Once inside, he logged into his character aboard his Airship, pulling out from the Tarolas Skyport amongst the large Vindicator ships.
“Okay, can you hear me?” Linda’s voice entered his ears.
“Yep, loud and clear.” Ryan replied.
“What’s the name of the player you’re suspecting of using the exploit to increase their speed?” Linda asked curiously. Ryan paused in his response, not wanting to sound too suspicious at what he was trying to make Linda do.
“Hajax.”
“Hajax. Okay.” Linda sounded strained for a moment in her voice as she focused on something. “Got it, I’ve located the player Hajax. They’re approaching Tarolas in an unmarked Airship from the south, currently about 100 kilometers out from reaching the island. There’s a total of 8 players aboard the Airship. No livestreamers. I’m not tracking any irregular movement, though. Their pilot is utilizing Airburst on cooldown, but that’s pretty standard for long range travel.”
“That’s fine, what they’re doing is much more subtle.” Ryner replied to her through his mind, using the GM communications which Linda was speaking to him through. He began using his Airship pilot skills to steer his own Airship to face southward. “In order to confirm whether or not they’re exploiting, I’m going to need their exact coordinates, update it in real time for me for a few seconds.
“That’s a bunch of numbers, you want me to repeat them to you every second?” Linda asked him in annoyance.
“Anyway you can just send them to me every few seconds?”
“I guess…” Linda hesitated again. “Are you sure this is allowed?”
“It’s for an important investigation.” Ryner assured her.
“Alright.” Linda replied, then hit a few buttons in her GM simulation. Following her actions, co-ordinates for Hajax in the Shattered World online appeared in Ryner’s peripheral vision, updating in realtime. Despite him being such a great distance away, Ryner could use his interface to pinpoint his exact direction from Ryner’s.
“Got him. Okay, thanks.” Ryner said as he faced his Airship to line up perfectly with the location of Hajax, adjusting his trajectory slightly to aim ahead of them based on the speed of their movement. Once he was sure he’d aimed his ship properly, he took a deep anxious breath.
“Linda.” Ryner spoke in a whisper. “It was nice working with you. You’re my favorite co-worker.”
“What? Oh no. Don’t you dare bring me into this.” Linda suddenly realized what was happening and shouted at him angrily. Ryner ignored her and waved his fingers through the air.
“Someone’s gotta stop this asshole, and Nicholas can’t do it. I’ll take the fall. I’ll make the world better.” Ryner then quickly whipped his glowing yellow fingers through the air. “Airburst.” He cast, blasting a gust of wind into the sails of his ship, soaring it forward at incredible speeds towards the unmarked ship that he knew Seraxus was on, thanks to Linda’s GM coordination.
Within seconds, despite the unmarked Airship being so far out from Tarolas, Ryner’s airship was able to get to it. Seraxus, Zuon, Hajax, Gambit, who were all on the deck of the ship looking eagerly at the continent of Tarolas on the horizon, were completely caught off guard. A ship ramming into them with Airburst from such a far distance away, at such an incredible speed, was not something anyone could anticipate or react to.
“The fu-?” Seraxus barely got the words out before Ryner’s ship crashed into his, causing both Airships to shatter into thousands of pieces, destroying them both. Ryner was killed immediately on impact, forcing him to log out from the gameworld.
The moment his Simbox opened, an angrily looking Mike was standing over him, glaring down at him. Linda stood behind him, staring over Mike’s shoulder with a worried expression.
“What the hell did you just do?” Mike asked in an infuriated tone.