Nova terra kingbreaker t.., p.23
Nova Terra: Kingbreaker (The Titan Series Book 3), page 23
His [Pack Travel] ability did not work if he was not in a group, but Thorn’s endless stamina allowed him to make up for it. The trip to the mine had only taken him a single night, even with a few stops to allow others to rest. Even without [Pack Travel] Thorn was able to reach the valley in the same time. The quest had finished up around 4 o’clock in the morning, and by the time Thorn set out, the sun had begun to rise. After fighting all night, Thorn was starving, so he ate as he ran.
The trip afforded him plenty of time to think, and as he ran through the forests, Thorn could feel his mind clearing. His life before entering the game had never been complicated. He had lived within strict boundaries imposed by his physical condition and his aunt’s job. Wealth had afforded him incredible opportunity, but it had also brought with it an unbendable order. Everything he had experienced had been directed by others.
The freedom he experienced in Nova Terra had changed him, causing him to grow and mature as he was forced to make his own choices. Yet the number of options open to him was quickly becoming overwhelming. No one was telling him what to do or where to go. There was no one to establish his schedule or create a goal for him.
Taking over the valley and creating Nova Luna had seemed like natural things to do, but now that he had established the guild and taken up the position of Baron Greymane, Thorn was at a loss. To make it worse, the number of people relying on him was only growing. He had put little thought into the fact that other players were going to be counting on him when he started down this path, but it was beginning to weigh on him now that he was in the middle of it.
On top of that, Thorn was still not sure what he was aiming for. He had entered the game as a way to pass the time while his body was being worked on and had quickly fallen in love with the sense of freedom that Nova Terra afforded him. Yet he had no idea what he wanted for the future. Thorn had a sneaking suspicion that if he did not come up with a goal, the game was going to come up with one for him. That thought put him on edge.
It felt like everyone that he encountered had some sort of defined goal, something that they were striving toward, while Thorn felt like he was still just being dragged along by the current. With a million different things vying for his attention, Thorn was feeling overwhelmed. The fight for the underground fortress had been a nice distraction, even if he had lost it to Ragnarok, but as soon as he got out, he could feel all the different issues starting to weigh down on him again.
The pressure from the capital was starting to wear on Thorn’s nerves, and the thought of having to face an evaluation was disquieting. On top of that, the fact that players were causing trouble magnified his discomfort. But why should he face the game passively, accepting whatever came along? Thorn had fought for everything he had accomplished, and he was not about to let it be washed away.
As his distance-eating strides carried him over the hills, Thorn’s will became increasingly firm. The extraneous thoughts and concerns that had been weighing on him began to fade away, left in the dust kicked up by his pounding feet. If his experience underground had taught him anything, it was that the active person had the advantage. Rather than passively responding to what was happening around him, Thorn grew determined to take control of his life and future.
The day was well advanced when Thorn arrived at the gates of Moon Wolf Citadel. He had only been gone for a few days, but the sight of the bustling gate brought a smile to his face. Waving to the saluting guards, Thorn wove his way past the queued carts full of goods being transported into the valley. Shouting players mixed with the native merchants, creating a lively scene.
Heading directly for the fortress, Thorn responded to the greetings from members of Nova Luna that he passed, each smile and wave hardening his resolve. These people were counting on him, and he was not about to let them down. Pushing the double doors open, Thorn strode into the throne room, the sound of his boots bringing silence to the large room.
Standing below the throne, Captain Del’har was glaring at the two groups of people who had been complaining loudly just moments before. Behind the Wolfkin captain stood Corvo, his rag cloak wrapped tightly around him. As the door to the throne room opened, everyone’s heads turned, their gazes settling on the giant who had just entered.
Thorn walked toward the throne, openly examining the two groups of people who had been arguing with Captain Del’har. On the right stood a collection of natives and players dressed in fashionable clothing. From the jewelry adorning their figures, Thorn guessed that they were the merchants that Corvo had mentioned in his message. The group on the left was comprised of seven Wolfkin players with a variety of equipment. No doubt, this was the group of disgruntled players.
After looking over the two groups, Thorn walked past them to the raised dias. Nodding to Corvo and Del’har, who were both bowing, Thorn sat in the Wolf Throne, placing his helmet on one of the carved armrests. His eyes flickered as he silently watched the mix of players and natives standing below him.
“Captain, please remove everyone from the throne room and invite the representative from the capital to meet me.”
At Thorn’s command, a storm of protests erupted from the players and natives who crowded under the throne. In vain the captain tried to invite them to leave, but from their furious voices, it was obvious that they were not about to cooperate.
“Enough.” Even though he was not shouting, Thorn’s voice was heavy, weighing down on the crowd like a thick blanket. Using some of the tricks he had learned from his classes in the Dawn Court, Thorn silenced the shouts. “I will hear your complaints in due time. Your issues have been noted, and you will get time to present your cases. This is not the time. Speak to the captain, and he will let you know when it is your turn. Guards!” Raising his voice, Thorn called in the disciples from the Temple of the Moon that stood outside the throne room. Waving his hand for the guards to escort the crowd out, Thorn paid no more attention to them.
“Welcome back, Lord Greymane. It is wonderful to see you again.” Corvo saluted Thorn again, bowing slightly with his right hand over his heart.
“Is it? Seems like all sorts of problems cropped up while I was gone. What is that about?”
“Eh, something about you seems to attract issues. You know what they say about the tallest tree, right? You’ve risen to prominence in a very short time and, as a result, you’ve garnered a lot of attention. Unfortunately, that isn’t always a good thing. It would seem that the attention you’re receiving is mostly of the jealous kind.”
“It is not my fault I am such an easy target.” Shrugging, Thorn cracked a smile. “Can you give me a rundown on what is going on? Try to limit it to things that need immediate attention.”
“Sure. As I see it, there are four things going on that require your attention. Two are complaints, one is the woman who has arrived from the capital, and the last is the quest you are on. We can deal with them one at a time.” Taking a moment to organize his thoughts, Corvo rubbed the back of his head.
“First, the players are complaining about the fact that Nova Luna has a nearly complete hold over the Temple of the Moon and the means of advancing as Wolfkin. Most players don’t care about it at all because the method we are using is fairly common for natives. The fact that we are players is what is making them complain. They don’t think it is fair for other players to have so much control. They are also complaining about how advancement is so closely tied to the Night Walker organization. There are pretty harsh penalties for betraying the group, so once they are in, there is pretty much no going back. This grumbling only started a couple of days ago, but I can tell that something dangerous is growing. I think that the leaders of this complaining group are doing it to solidify their influence among the Wolfkin players. It smells like they are positioning themselves for a coup.”
“Really? What makes you say that?”
“It is the way they are acting, like they are bringing this issue up for the sake of righteousness. Any time people are doing something solely for the good of the group, it is suspect.”
“Interesting. What else do you have?” Cupping his chin in his palm, Thorn looked at Corvo attentively. The avatar of Huginn was speaking with certainty, and Thorn was inclined to believe him. He knew that disruptive elements would be trying to infiltrate the valley, but this seemed much faster than he expected.
“We haven’t confirmed it, but I think that one of the leaders of this group is from Ragnarok. Since you are now in direct competition with Ragnarok over the World Quest, I would watch for them to start actively trying to keep your attention here. Reports of grumbling and rumors have increased this morning, which coincides with you getting ready to enter the next stage of the quest. I know you have dealt with Ouroboros and his trickiness, but honestly, Sylith is a whole different bag of sly.
“He has been sparring with the other top guilds in this game for years, and his reach is significant. I would not be surprised if he was the one instigating everything. This issue is tricky because players don’t like being restricted by other players. They are pinning you as a tyrant trying to control everyone who wants to play as a Wolfkin. If you don’t deal with this properly, it could get out of control really quickly.”
“Hmm. Maybe we were hasty in trying to tie everything up,” Thorn mused.
“I don’t think so. Our idea was fundamentally fine. And overall, the players are responding really well. The idea of being part of a racial organization that will support them with cheap goods and intelligence as they adventure is really attractive. Let me be clear here, this could be a really small issue, if dealt with properly. But, if we don’t handle it well, it could blow up in our face.”
“Are people joining already? I assumed it would be a while before anyone was eligible.”
“There are already close to 10,000 disciples who have graduated into their dual category class. Don’t underestimate how intense people can be when playing this game. The Night Walkers Association has around seven thousand players, while the Moon Guardians have grown to twenty-seven hundred. All of the members of Nova Luna who are disciples are part of either the Night Walkers or the Moon Guardians, but there are close to four thousand players who are not affiliated with us that have joined. And more are joining every day as they complete their disciple training.”
“Impressive. Do we have a way for Wolfkin who are not disciples to join?”
“It is impressive. Currently we don’t have any way for non-disciples to join, which is where the complaints are coming from.” Corvo smirked. “Players will complain about anything, but in this case, their complaints are somewhat valid. The instigators are saying that you are not leaving a path for those who don’t want to join the temple.”
“How many people are stirring the pot? Is there any way to isolate them?”
“We’ve traced it back to three players. Two of them were here a moment ago, but the third stays behind the scenes. We don’t have any way of limiting who spawns as a Wolfkin, and we want to be really careful exerting more control than we need to, or we might actually justify their cause.”
“That makes sense. Let me think about it for a bit.” Thorn tapped the armrest of the Wolf Throne with his finger as he considered the situation. Knowing he would not be able to come up with a solution to such a complicated problem in a short time, Thorn turned his attention back to Corvo. “What else do we have to deal with?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
The evening light was soft as it filtered through the large columns that lined the east side of the throne room. Magical lanterns sprang to life as the sunlight faded from the sky, bathing the room in a warm glow.
“Merchants.” Corvo’s face grew dark as he scowled. “Bunch of parasites. A coalition of merchants has gathered and demanded increased benefits.”
“Oh? What are they demanding?”
“They want exclusive access to the valley and a reduction in the taxes they pay. The bloodsuckers are demanding that you drop the tax rate to half a percent or they’ll pack up and leave. As you saw, a whole group of them have banded together to put forward these terms.”
“Do you know what is prompting this?”
“3C and Silver Fist are two merchant guilds that moved in almost as soon as the citadel was open. They are two of the larger merchant guilds in this duchy and, as far as we can figure, they are the ones pushing this agenda. Silver Fist has great sway among the native merchants, and they’ve used this tactic before in other places. If we are not mistaken, there is also someone else behind this as well.”
“Ragnarok?”
“That is what we think, but we have no conclusive proof. And even if we had conclusive proof, there isn’t actually anything we can do. There are no rules against asking for a bigger cut.”
“What percentage of trade will stop if they go through with their threats?”
“If all of the merchants involved in the coalition decide to cut off trade, we are looking at a nearly 80 percent reduction in available goods. The game’s system will continue to provide the entry level goods, but because this is a starter area, the goods are going to be pretty basic. The merchants also provide a lot of services like appraisal and the raw materials needed for enchanting, alchemy, and other fine crafts.”
“But what about the cash shop? Back when I bound Akira, I was able to use windowed mode to complete the transaction. Can’t people just purchase goods like that?”
“No, the cash shop doesn’t carry any of the goods that merchants stock. So you can buy things like pet cards, or schematics, but you cannot buy weapons, armor, material, you know, physical stuff you use as you play.”
“Oh, wow. So we really do rely on external merchants.”
“Correct.”
Rubbing his jaw lightly with his fingers, Thorn sighed. At first blush, this problem seemed easy to resolve, but the more he thought about it, the more complicated it became. If he did not give in to the merchant’s demands and they carried through with their threat, the valley stood to lose much more than their business. One of the reasons that so many of the players who chose to play as Wolfkin stuck around was the concentration of services and goods that they could find in Moon Wolf Citadel.
If those goods and services were to suddenly be reduced by 80 percent, most players would begin to drift away. Even if Thorn poured money into establishing the service through Nova Luna, it would be too late. Players would naturally gravitate toward locations where it was easier to play, and if the citadel lost the conveniences it currently offered, the number of players in the valley would drop.
On top of that, building a merchant network of their own was not as easy as it seemed. If the situation with the merchant guilds soured, they would, no doubt, do their best to prevent Nova Luna from expanding outside the valley, which would make it nearly impossible for Thorn to resolve the issues in the valley in a short amount of time.
“Can we invite other merchant groups to replace them?” Thorn asked Corvo,
“Yes. That is one possible solution. However, it is likely that we’ll have to pay more in order to convince a large enough group to expand here. Even though the merchant groups here are not that powerful overall, they are still too strong locally for it to be easy for any of the bigger groups to enter the market. As they say, even a strong dragon can’t repress a local snake.”
“What do they say?” Thorn was confused. “Who says that?”
“Uh. I don’t know. I just heard it somewhere, and I thought it was cool. It means that local advantage trumps external influence.”
“Huh. I see. I mean, it makes sense. A merchant group in the capital might be bigger, but they don’t have the connections that a local group has.”
“Exactly.” Corvo grinned. “At this point, we don’t have many options besides negotiating. The largest advantage we have is that the Wolfkin advancement resource is here in the valley. Our biggest disadvantage is that we don’t have any other resources to trade. Unless we can come up with some sort of specialty good, we have almost no leverage.”
“Ugh. What a mess. On the one hand, we have money hungry merchants taking advantage of the fact that we only have the moonstones as a resource, and on the other we have players pushing us to make the moonstones more easily available.”
“Haha, just wait. It gets better.” Despite the seriousness of the challenges, Corvo seemed to be enjoying how convoluted the situation was. “On top of those two things, someone has been dispatched from the capital to assess you and how effective your rule is. Lady Sere. She arrived a few days ago to look around, so there is no way we can hide the fact that the players and merchants are protesting.”
“Huh, that timing is awfully convenient.”
“Exactly. I suspect that the two groups are, in part, putting on a show to make it look like you are bad at your job.”
Rubbing the back of his head, Thorn looked up at the vaulted ceiling, his mind running through the laws of the empire that he had read on his trip to the capital. The law was extensive, and if he was remembering correctly, the examination criteria for a noble who was suspected of treason were highly specific. Without direct proof of Thorn betraying the empire, it would be very difficult for anyone to do more than embarrass him.
