37. Drama pt. 2

“No, it’s nothing like that at all, Peotre,” I objected. We had decided when we split that whoever ended up closer to the door would be Hail, and I had been closer to the far wall. That made me Hagi, so I had cast [Illusion Magic: Disguise] to help the others keep it straight as well. “Right now I have no idea what Hail is thinking at all.”

Hail nodded. “And I have no idea what Hagi is thinking. We’re basically two completely different people until we sync up again tonight. We just have all of the same memories leading up to the point where the split happened.”

“Except that tomorrow we’ll remember being both of us during this conversation,” I clarified. “I’m sorry, I really don’t know how to explain it very well.”

“I don’t think that’s your fault, Hail,” Daemon said. “I actually think you’ve done an excellent job of explaining it. Peotre is just a bit dense.”

“Hey!” Peotre objected.

“Thank you for trusting us with this information. Both of you.” Ulasha said.

I shook my head. “You’re not getting it. I made the decision before I split. When I’m one person, I’m one person. When I’m five people, I’m still only one person. There’s just five of us. We both came out of the split carrying the conviction to explain this new ability to you. Hagi is an alias I’ve been using, not a completely different personality or anything like that.”

“It sounds very convenient,” Dimple commented.

“It is,” I agreed.

“I’m curious. Do you know whether this is an ability which will continue to grow as you use it, or will it’s current limitations never change?” Daemon asked.

I considered the question. “I think it will level up the more I use it,” I said. “At first I thought it was linked to my [Placeholder] class, but I don’t think that’s quite accurate. Instead I think that I have to keep using it in order to stretch its limitations.”

“So it’s like a muscle you have to build up?” he clarified.

“I suppose.”

“Thank you for this information, Hail. Hagi.” Tarisha said. “I can understand why you were keeping it to yourself, but you should know that nobody in this room would even think of betraying your trust in them. In fact, I’m quite certain that our only thoughts at the moment are ways in which we can help you exploit this new ability to its maximum potential.”

I glanced at Peotre and Ulasha, the two Travelers in the room whom I knew the least, but they simply nodded along with Tarisha’s sentiment. I shrugged. “Honestly, I can’t really think of any way you could help me aside from maybe sowing some disinformation. Right now my primary goal is to get all of my classes to level forty-nine before the battlegrounds begin. I’m not quite certain that I’ll manage, since [Acolyte] is so far behind the others.”

“We can help you with that,” Dimple pointed out. “We have plenty of people who would be thrilled to power level you, whether or not you decided to destroy lairs or bust dungeons along the way.”

“I’m not certain we want to be power leveled,” Hail objected.

I nodded. “I think we’d rather keep pugging.”

“Here’s a question,” Daemon said. “Are you both aware of guild chat right now?”

“I am,” Hail said.

“I’m not,” I answered. “The system only considers me in when I sign in as Hail. Hagi and my randomly chosen names are all unguilded. I’ve actually had to turn down quite a few random invites. It’s a little annoying.”

Daemon nodded. “Hail, would you consider joining the Mavericks as Hagi as well?”

I exchanged glances with myself.

“What would we tell the others?” I asked.

“If you don’t want to tell them the truth, then we tell them that Hagi is Hail 2.0,” Peotre suggested.

I frowned. “I’m not sure I like that idea.”

“Do you have a better one?” Peotre asked. “I mean, I don’t mean to say that Hagi is better than Hail or anything, it’s just a way of phrasing things that the others will understand and believe.”

I looked at Hail again, who scratched his chin in thought. “Why do we have to tell them anything?” he asked. “You’re not explaining everything about the purge, why do I have to explain Hagi to people I barely know?”

The others exchanged glances. “It will draw quite a bit of chatter in the guild chat,” Daemon pointed out. “Everyone is already pretty sure that Hagi is an AI after all. Having two resident Native Player Characters in one guild will draw a ton of attention from everyone both inside the guild and out.”

Ulasha chuckled. “We’re already under a microscope. I don’t see a problem with it.”

I considered the proposition for several moments, because it was a complex matter. On the one hand, associating Hagi with the Mavericks would increase the likelihood that my secrets would come out sooner rather than later. While they had tried to purge the majority of the spies that had sneaked their way through the application process into the guild since I joined, that didn’t mean that they had gotten all of them. I knew at that endgame was ruthless, and the big guilds would think nothing of paying one of their retainers to keep an eye on me through the Mavericks.

On the other hand, it would make it much easier to use my abilities in regards to lairs and dungeons with the support of The Hagi alias was already blown, but if I wanted to operate incognito all I needed to do was tell the system to apply a random name to my current session and it would. The only downside to that was the confusion it could cause when the strangers I partied with called me by that random name.

“Let’s do it,” Hail said, coming to the same conclusion as me at the same moment that I had, but voicing it sooner.

“I agree. But not just one Hagi. Let’s join as [Mage], [Duelist], [Archer], and [Acolyte].”

“Are you sure?” Hail asked.

“I am. Unless the system doesn’t let us for some reason.” <>

<> the system answered.

I glanced at Hail, who nodded at me. I think he’d gotten the same message that I had. “Split yourself further, Hagi,” he said, just to confirm that we were on the same page.

I nodded. <>

A moment later, the room had gotten significantly more crowded. The four of me that were Hagi selected our classes at random. I got [Duelist].

“Okay, we’re ready,” I said once the class selection was concluded. “Invite us all to the guild.”

Moderator

Hagi (Duelist) has joined the guild!

Moderator

Hagi (Mage) has joined the guild!

Moderator

Hagi (Acolyte) has joined the guild!

Moderator

Hagi (Archer) has joined the guild!

Hail

Hello everyone. I’d like you to meet Hagi. He’s my friend. And yes, he’s like me.

Hagi (Duelist)

Hey all. Yeah, before you ask, each of us is a different person. Sort of. It’s complicated and we’re not going to explain.

Gummytiger

OMG! Welcome Hagi! Welcome each of you! It’s so nice that you decided to join us! We’re so excited to have you here!

Potatoad

Excited and lucky. You’re NPCs, right? Natives like Hail? The pressure is going to go up even higher on us when the big boys find out that we have five of you guys now.

Hexshade

Wait, is this what the purge was all about? To get ready for the Hagis?

Ulasha

No. The purge was a long time coming, but guild leadership didn’t know that Hail and Hagi truly had a relationship until Hail revealed it to us a few minutes ago. When he did, we extended an offer to Hagi, and he/they accepted. The situation is evolving very rapidly and I ask everyone to treat Hagi as a guild secret for now. I will make an official post on the forums regarding what we want the public to know about him/them, and that will the the official story that I expect everyone to follow. Leakers will find themselves in the next purge.

Hail

I’m still not sure how I feel about everyone who was kicked because of how they were talking about me, but the truth is that I wouldn’t have gotten Hagi invited to the guild if a lot of those people were still around.

Hagi (Acolyte)

Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

And I wouldn’t have wanted to join.

Hagi (Mage)

^

Hagi (Archer)

^

Hagi (Duelist)

What they said.

Hexshade

...Okay. So now I have to think about things. I’m still not happy that the purge happened without warning, but I’m closing the ticket I opened and I’ll wait a few days to see how things play out before demanding my money back.

I watched as others also expressed their surprise and interest in the new guild members, of which I was only one. The various guild chat channels were streaming by just as fast as they had been during the purge, and while there was still some lingering resentment, the majority of the guild seemed to be excited by this sudden turn of events. I turned back to the others in the room.

“Well, then, now that the cat is out of the bag, I guess we should figure out what the party line is going to be, shouldn’t we?”

Several hours later, I took a break from grinding a lair with my guildmates to read the forum topic that had evolved from that conversation.

Subject

Nethersong Drama

Original Poster: Ulasha

Ulasha

I am the guild leader of the and I’d like to take a moment to address the recent drama which occurred within my guild and has extended out into the forums. As many of you are aware by now, I initiated a large purge in which almost three hundred members were kicked from the guild with no notice or explanation.

I regret the necessity of this action, but there were a number of factors which went into the decision for each of those removals.

One of the major reasons that players were removed from the guild because they had less than three logins over the last two weeks. This was a long standing rule with the Mavericks which wasn’t being actively enforced until the purge. Should those players who were kicked for inactivity return to the game and wish to rejoin the Mavericks, they may reapply as per our rules and they will find themselves at the front of the queue.

Another common reason was debt. While we try to be generous in helping out our membership, a large number of players were taking advantage of our guild bank’s withdrawal policy. We’ve been monitoring the issue for some time and most of the players who were removed for this reason shouldn’t be very surprised, as they had already had their bank access restricted, and each of them had been contacted by an officer at least once requesting that they repay at least a portion of what they owed or there would be consequences. Being in the purge was that consequence. We are writing off those players debt; although if they wish to rejoin they might be welcome back if they were to repay what they owe us.

However, I’m sad to say that the number one reason for earning a /gkick was due to AI discrimination against our resident Native Player. This was in violation of our rules, and each of the players who earned their /gkick this way was warned repeatedly by officers and other members. While we had been lax in enforcing these rule for some time, which probably accounts for the surprise at the suddenness of the purge, I feel that nobody was removed without adequate warning that their position in the guild was in peril.

Going forward, the will be far more strict in monitoring its chat functions and enforcing its global rules.

Now that we’ve gotten past the unfortunate drama that occurred earlier today, I’d like to move on to some happy news!

The is pleased to announce that we have recruited the infamous Hagi! Turns out that he’s Hail’s friend; they’ve been chatting noncontextually for a while now. I’m authorized to reveal the following information:

 Yes, Hagi is a Native Player Character, just like Hail

 Yes, Hagi can bust dungeons and destroy lairs, just like Hail

 Don’t ask Hagi to create dungeons or battlegrounds. He gives all of his cores to Hail. The application processes for those two new mechanics have not and will not change.

 Unlike Hail, Hagi can be in up to four different locations at once, and has access to several different classes and roles. Don’t be surprised if you see him healing one day and DPSing the next.

Other than that, we don’t really know too much about Hagi, but we’re really looking forward to getting to know him!

Norman433

I’m calling bullshit on my gkick! I have a ticket open, and I’m totally going to get back what’s mine!

CipherAQ40

We weren’t even given a chance to defend ourselves! It’s not fair! And then the GL has the gall to say that we were in debt to the guild? I think I’ve donated at least three thousand gold to the bank over the last few weeks I’ve been a member.

PixelP78

Lol, they kick the flesh and blood, then invite more chatbots. Before long it’ll be like Facebook. Nothing but chatbots and dead people talking back and forth, sharing trivia from two centuries ago.

HavocMaster

I was offline when the purge happened. I logged in and found out that apparently six months of loyalty counts for nothing! Whatever. This purge was a total slap in the face to people who didn’t deserve it.

RebelRogue2

Wow, you guys are salty. I guess I would be too if I was in an exclusive guild with an exclusive resource then got kicked just before the resource was doubled.

Peafowlet

@RebelRogue2 thinking of him as a resource is exactly what got so many of them kicked.

Naysayer21

So, the rumors of a second AI hybrid are true? Do we know who the father is this time?

Hagi

@Naysayer21 It’s your mom.

PewPewQQ

@Hagi Oh snap! He’s on the internetz already!

I watched for a few minutes as the thread exploded. At first everyone was responding to Ulasha’s wall of text, but although the banned former members of continued to vent their frustration (including the revelation of several minor guild secrets), more and more of the posters began trying to draw my attention. Others were complaining that it was unfair that my guild had managed to attract two NPC members when ‘the feature remained unavailable to everyone else.’ I was about to close out the forums when a wild blue post appeared.

Subject

Nethersong Drama

Original Poster: Ulasha

Wotan

The administration has directed me to convey the following information:

1. There will be no official investigation into the purge committed by the leadership. It is within their purview to make their own rules and enforce them as they see fit. Even if some innocent players got caught in the mix, the admin is not getting involved in this matter beyond posting in this thread. All tickets opened in regards to this matter will be marked resolved and closed immediately.

2. The only reason we’re posting in this thread is to address the matter of Hagi and Hail

3. Hagi is an independent class eight entity.

4. Hail has been promoted to a class eight entity.

5. Hail has filed a grievance with Arc inc. under section 8.4.2.3 of the Digital Sentience Statute.

6. Arc inc. is taking the grievance filed by Hail very seriously.

7. Due to the grievance, we have been relaxing many of the restrictions that were in place to keep Hail and Hagi and their support systems from unbalancing the game. While this has been causing some issues in a number of starting zones, the development team is aware of the problem.

8. It’s not a bug. It’s a feature.

That is all of the information that I am authorized to release regarding the topics of this thread at this time.

As was generally the case whenever an administrator posted in the forums, the thread really blew up after that.

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