Unforeseen path, p.18
Unforeseen Path, page 18
“Hey, at least we want you for something,” Phoenix said as we fell in behind Töten, “because it’s definitely not due to your sparkling personality.”
“Hey,” Töten exclaimed, “I had a lot of shit on my mind-”
As the two of them began bitching at each other, I let out a happy sigh at how everything had turned out with Töten. While I wasn’t exactly thrilled at his little emotional tizzy, I was used to dealing with such things as a guild leader. It just hit a bit closer to home than I’d realized when he’d rejected us so hard after helping him to take back his stronghold, especially after how everything had gone down with Zeven. At least with Töten, we’d been able to clear that up and make a friend.
‘I’m glad that worked out,’ Helgath sent as we rode.
‘Me too,’ I agreed, hugging her to my chest.
Chapter Eight
(Monday, May 12th / Day 22 of The World.)
(Jodi Tempest logging into BrokenFang Hold after work.)
Jodi Tempest: I’m entering the keep now. Where are you guys?
Tumms Darkbrew: We’re in the back at the bar.
Jodi Tempest: There’s a bar in the back?
Tumms Darkbrew: Okay, maybe bar was the wrong word to use. We’re next to the place where the cooks prepare the food. You know, by the quest board.
Jodi Tempest: Okay, on my way.
“Fuck, where did all of these people come from?” Jodi muttered under her breath in annoyance as she pushed her way through the crowd in the foyer to reach the great hall.
“Leet … leet!” Blasto loudly agreed, struggling to be released to let his displeasure be known.
“No, a Pyro Blast won’t help the situation,” Jodi chided as she kept the Elite Pyro Spitter close to her chest so he wouldn’t cause any problems. The last thing any of them needed was for him to get loose and cause a ruckus in these tight quarters.
It wasn’t like Jodi hadn’t seen such a large number of NPCs before. If you took Nren Unarith as a prime example of a typical city in The World, there were thousands upon thousands of people in total within the city’s walls. You just rarely had a chance to see the majority of them all in one place. And, even if you did it for a festival or something, it would’ve at least made logical sense.
“This, on the other hand, is just freaking insane,” Jodi muttered under her breath as she silently shook her head while Blasto let out a remorseful “Leet” from her shoulder.
What was so crazy about all of this was that BrokenFang Hold was a player-owned city, not a pre-built city constructed by the developers. Not only that, it had all been upgraded, or in the process of, in just two full weeks. Jodi let out a dismissive snort. And, for most of that time, he hadn’t even been around to manage everything.
How many NPCs did Startum even have at the end of his Nightmare quest? What, maybe two-hundred or two-hundred-fifty Jodi thought, trying to remember back to what she’d seen during her video marathon of Startum’s Twitch Channel? Yeah, that sounded about right, but she now remembered that didn’t include the seven hundred NPCs that he somehow had managed to purchase at the start of his second week.
That seemed like a crazy number of NPCs for any one player to buy, Jodi thought, but after one week of actual gameplay, she realized that there were only a limited number of successful Nightmare start players. Not only that, there were even fewer that would’ve had any available funds for such a purchase. That’s if they even knew about the NPC Recruiter. She snorted to herself. Even if they had the money, in her experience, most players would’ve just put the money into gearing themselves up better instead of building up their own base.
That might sound odd, but it was actually the smart play. Base building was always a difficult balance at the best of times. Jodi knew all too well how difficult it was to be a new player that only had a limited amount of funds to gear themselves up. Did you use your limited resources to purchase NPCs that wouldn’t be of any immediate use at the beginning of the game, and in actuality, took more of your limited funds for their constant upkeep? Or, did you use that same money to quickly level yourself up and then build up your base once you had a regular flow of coins coming in due to your higher level?
From what Jodi had seen up until now, Startum had chosen to invest all of his money into leveling up his base and skilling up his NPCs. She didn’t know everyone else’s thoughts on that decision, but in her book, doing that had been a major gamble on Startum’s part.
Still, with all that being said. If everyone that had been in Requiem, the fortress at Fang Pass, building the wall, and normally living here had all gathered in one place, Jodi still didn’t think it would be this many people. That meant something else had to be going on.
“Excuse me, coming through,” Jodi apologetically called out as she came across a knot of crafters animatedly talking with one another. It wasn’t that they were being rude. There were simply no other places for them to sit or stand in the great hall.
“Sorry about that,” the charcoal gray Grimal Kin apologized as she stepped aside to let Jodi past, “it’s a little tight right now while they’re getting all of us organized.”
“I bet,” Jodi automatically replied as she squeezed past, wondering what the other woman had meant.
That was the other crazy thing about all of this. What was with all of the new species she’d been seeing around the place? There were all kinds of Beast Kin wandering around along with a number of Gnomes, Humans, and Gnomelings. Didn’t Nightmare start players only get access to purchasing members of their own species? As she wondered what was up with that, a shout caught her attention.
“Jodi, over here!”
Looking around, Jodi saw Tumms holding up his arm towards the back of the room next to where the cooks were busy preparing food. Waving to let him know that she’d seen him, she began making a beeline toward him through the crowd. As she got close, she saw the group of Zeppy’s Heroes that he’d been teaming up with during the day enjoying a mug of ale.
“Hey guys,” Jodi said as she walked up.
“Hey Jodi,” the group of players chorused.
“How’s the leveling going?” Jodi asked as they made room for her to stand with them at the bar.
“Awesome, I’m up nearly six levels,” Tumms happily said, pushing a mug of ale into her hands as Blasto jumped on the bar squawking loudly.
“Leet … leet … leet!” the Elite Pyro Spitter loudly complained as he furiously began cleaning his fur in a huff.
“That’s only because you were so much lower than the rest of the raid, Tumms,” Sunny sweetly said as the Zeppy Heroes’ players began teasing the Priest. Ignoring the banter, the Essence Shaman gave Jodi a wink, “Not that I’m complaining about the four levels the rest of us picked up so far.”
“Damn, that’s some fast leveling,” Jodi said, letting out a low whistle, “I thought you guys were going to run local quests for the NPCs, not do a dungeon run.”
“Oh, honey,” Sunny exclaimed, letting out a brief laugh, “that is from doing local quests.”
“Really?” Jodi asked in surprise, looking towards Tumms for confirmation.
“It’s been easy stuff,” Tumms said as the rest of the group gave him an incredulous look, “mostly escort quests for miners so they can gather their ore.
“Says the healer that’s been standing in the back while the rest of us have been dealing with the majority of the fighting,” Grody croaked out as the rest of the melee classes began ribbing the Devil Dog again.
“Escort quests are far from easy,” Zeppy groused, after taking a deep draw from his mug.
“You guys hardly did any actual fighting,” Tumms exclaimed.
“That’s not the point,” Lylar argued as Sunny rolled her eyes.
“While those Warrior Badgers were tough to take down,” Sunny said, lowering her voice as Tumms proclaimed that he’d been doing as much fighting as any of the rest of them, “they weren’t too bad since we’ve all been using our new Zombie pets as much as possible.” The older Priest gave her a wink. “That really has been saving on the amount of heals either one of us has to cast during a fight.”
“I bet,” Jodi mused as she discreetly glanced around the great hall before changing the topic, “Do any of you know where all of these people came from? I swear; they weren’t all here when we logged out last time.”
“Oh, that’s because they didn’t arrive until this morning,” Zeppy explained as the rest of the party nodded enthusiastically.
“It was quite a sight. We were just heading out the front gate on our first escort quest when,” Tumms said as his voice filled with awe, “BOOM, eight-hundred-twenty-five NPCs suddenly appeared in front of the keep.”
“There was no actual boom,” Sunny said, rolling her eyes at the Devil Dogs’ theatrics, “but it was mighty impressive.”
“I can’t believe Startum was able to buy out the entire region’s available NPCs again,” Grody said, crossing her arms over her saggy dungs, “Wouldn’t all of those large guilds be trying to purchase their own NPCs to counter his local forces?”
“You’d have thought,” Pheyed agreed, “especially since he’s been using them so effectively to fight all of them.” His face squinched up in thought. “Do you think he just outbid them all?”
“That’s the only thing that would make any sense,” Warduke thoughtfully said, considering the problem strategically, “With the Hobgoblin invasion headed our way, there’s no way he couldn’t lay down whatever coin was needed to get all of the available NPCs.”
“That must have cost him a shit-ton,” Grody said, shaking her head as everyone nodded in agreement.
“That’s the part I don’t get. How would Startum even have that kind of coin this early on in the game?” Jodi asked, looking around the circle at everyone, “He what, started out with around two-hundred and fifty NPCs after his Nightmare quest was complete and then got another eight-hundred-twenty-five now.”
“That’s probably eight-hundred-fifty,” Sunny said, as everyone glanced at her in surprise, “Don’t you remember he’s rerouting the Sea Elves to their own city?”
“Damn, I forgot about that,” Grody said as everyone nodded.
“Didn’t he also have an NPC order at the start of the third week?” Zeppy asked, glancing to his wife for confirmation, “I don’t remember seeing it on his feed but it would make sense.”
“Yeah, it would,” Sunny said slowly, “They’d have been delivered directly to BrokenFang Hold, so his Twitch Stream wouldn’t have shown their arrival since he’s been over in the Human Region this entire time.”
“I get that,” Jodi said, following the logic as she looked between the thoughtful faces around her, “but where did he get all of that coin from for those mass purchases?”
“Well, I don’t think any of the larger guilds were actually purchasing NPCs at the time,” Zeppy said with a faraway look in his eyes, “Weren’t they saying that purchasing NPCs was just a waste of resources on the forums?”
“Oh, yeah,” Grody said, “I remember several posts going on about that.”
“Something about them being useless because they died permanently,” Warduke added as he thought back to the gist of the thread.
“Yeah, that was it,” Pheyed said, pointing at Warduke excitedly, “Since the majority of Nightmare players were on the Isolde Line and they were in the process of being wiped out by the Chaos Storm Alliance, that would’ve meant Startum would’ve just been paying for the NPCs minimum bid.”
“Makes sense,” Grody agreed, “and Startum made a killing taking out all of those Orcs that were attacking the Sea Elves.”
“Wouldn’t that have wiped him out of coins?” Jodi pushed, thinking that Startum had to have found a bug or something to be doing everything he was doing.
“Yep, but that really wouldn’t have mattered,” Tumms said, thinking back to what everyone had been talking about on the Devil Dogs’ forum, “From what Thomas and everyone with him have been saying, they were rolling in the dough after Darom.” He shook his head with a touch of awe in his voice. “And that doesn’t include all of the coins they’ve been making from slaughtering tens of thousands of Orcs for the last few days.”
“Tens of thousands?” Jodi scoffed, thinking he was exaggerating.
“It’s been a pure bloodbath from what I’ve seen of the videos,” Zeppy said without a hint of sarcasm in his voice, “That new Dark Lance spell that Startum picked up at level 45 is crazy powerful.”
“It is in the right situation,” ChopU Ginsu quietly said, before cocking his head to the side, “Though, I imagine Startum made a killing in coins just by slaughtering all of those PVPers when they escaped Darom.”
“Now that was a bloodbath,” Warduke agreed, slamming his mug of ale down on the bar to emphasize his point, “Startum even gave them an extra special F.U. by giving all of his coins to his companion so they couldn’t get any of it back when they spawned-camped the fuck out of him.”
“That was pretty cold,” Tumms laughingly said, tipping his mug up in salute, “but beautifully carried out.”
“Damn, it sounds like I missed a hell of a show,” Jodi said, wondering how the mighty Startum Ironwolf handled being spawn-camped like a noob, “I know what I’ll be busy doing when I take lunch tomorrow.”
“Honey, just tell the truth. You just can’t wait to see Startum getting spawn-camped,” Sunny said in a disapproving tone.
“The other thing I don’t understand,” ChopU Ginsu said, ignoring a blushing Jodi as he ran a hand over his bald head, “is where did he get the extra hundred fifty NPCs from? I thought the max number of available NPCs for purchase in the region was seven hundred in total.”
“Yeah,” Jodi said, still unable to drop the point, “and I thought Nightmare players could only purchase NPCs from their own race.”
“He probably just knocked out some other special quest that gave him the extra NPCs to purchase like he did with the Centaurs,” Sunny said as the rest of them gave her a dumbfounded look, “I thought that was obvious enough.” She shook her head at the surprised faces looking back at her. “Otherwise, there wouldn’t be new Centaurs waiting along with the rest of the newbies.”
“Damn, woman,” Zeppy said to his wife, “you’re scary as hell with your Sherlocking at times.”
“Word,” Warduke said as he bumped fists with Grody.
“You boys just don’t pay attention to details like you did in the service,” Sunny teased when a familiar voice called out interrupting their conversation.
“Blasto!” Metite Ilyrall, the Centauride filly from the day before, excitedly called out at seeing the Pyro Splitter sitting on the top of the bar.
“Leet!” Blasto squawked in glee back. To Jodi’s complete surprise, the little traitor excitedly leaped into the young filly’s outstretched arms as the Centauride began cooing to him like a baby.
“I bet you’re hungry,” Metite conspiratorially said, walking back towards where the food was being prepared, “Come on, let’s go see if we can find you a few treats to eat while Jodi’s enjoying her ale.”
“What about our ale?” a scruffy black-furred Wolf Kin protested from further down the bar as the filly trotted away.
“Yeah, we were here first!” the scarred dark-gray Grimal Kin standing next to him exclaimed.
“I told you that Centaurides are not known for being barmaids,” a dark red-furred Kitsune Kin groused as she stared morosely into her empty mug.
“I’d better not be hearing any derisive remarks being made about my servers for their race,” a young Half-Elf female said as she abruptly came to a stop in front of the group of rough-looking NPCs. She’d been in the process of carrying some foodstuffs to the cooks in the back and overheard the casual comment.
“Not that I meant anything bad about it,” the Kitsune kin stammered as the rest of the group gave their teammate uncomfortable sideways looks, “I was just frustrated at having to wait for my ale.”
“Who is that Half-Elf female supposed to be?” Jodi hissed under her breath to Sunny.
As they both curiously watched the unfolding scene, Jodi started running Identifies on the group: Galvin Bruic, level 50 Badger kin, Guardian Ranger; Kei Taro, level 50 Kitsune kin, Deadshot Archer; Jinlura Dorhorn, level 50 Half-Elf, Shadow Stalker; Ordan Gauss, level 50 Wolf kin, Predatorial Hunter, and Ryu Shachu, level 50 Grimal kin, Arcane Ranger. Holy shit, Jodi silently thought as she finished identifying the last member of the group. These guys are all level 50!
“I don’t know,” Sunny whispered back, nodding to the young Half-Elf female, “I already did an Identify on her and she’s just a cook.”
“She’s just a cook?” Jodi exclaimed, not believing the other woman’s words until she saw the truth for herself from her own Identify as Mariona Furtaeln, level 43 Half-Elf, Head Cook appeared over the young girl’s head., “Holy shit, and she’s just telling off all of those level 50 Rangers?”
“That girl has a pair of ovaries on her,” Sunny agreed, letting out a throaty chuckle as the Half-Elf gave the Rangers a severe once over.
“All of you might have had one too many of those ales if you’re talking like that,” the young Half-Elf female groused as a frown came to her lips, “I’m warning you here and now. There are too many different species sharing the same space for attitudes like that to casually be bantered around.” Her stern face did a once over of the hard-looking Rangers. “You’re new here, so I’ll give you a chance to learn the ropes. But, if I hear any more talk like that, I’ll be letting Lord Ironwolf know about this the next time around. Yea hear me?”
“Yes, Mariona,” the group chorused as the young Half-Elf nodded to herself, before going on about her business.
“Damn, that was pure badassness,” Sunny said in awe.
“You’re telling me,” Jodi said, watching the young Half-Elf walk away towards the back of the kitchen. She gave the older woman a sidelong look, “Any clue why they’re listening to her without any backtalk? I would’ve thought for sure a crew like that would’ve given a young female cook a hard time out of everyone here.”
