FB: Chapter 128 – The Plan

“A different method for each of the three super guilds. One of them will involve avoiding the super guild entirely and going after monster myself,” I said. That would be almost as much of a pain as taking on the super guilds. But I needed to keep them guessing and confused.

“They only spawn in specific locations that are hard to get to. They will be watching if you make such a move,” Quant Z replied, and I nodded at this.

“I know. But you are being tasked with figuring out a plan for all three,” I said. This was something I could assign to Quant Z. I had no doubt there would be one really good plan and two half assed plans. But I knew he was smart enough to use the fake plans as decoys. I didn’t need to explain things to him step by step, he understood what needed to be done.

“And what of the other two super guilds? Which one are you going after first?” Quant Z asked me.

“HeroTen of course. Trying to avoid drama, how foolish, well I am going to drag them down into the mud. I am thinking a direct assault on their headquarters in Hole City. Use some facial obscuring items and make a direct assault on their main vault,” I declared.

“And they will be ready to break through such items and brand you a criminal in the Human Empire. This isn’t like Apex with their remote fortress complex,” Quant Z said.

“Easily solved. That’s why I am going to need your expertise and for you to reach out to some old friends. They don’t need to do anything more than walk about the city, their stay fully paid for a week,” I said. Quant Z got a thoughtful look as he figured out what I wanted. I didn’t explain it to him, since he enjoyed these mental brain teasers testing his brain power.

“You are evil. Pure evil, Foxy Blight,” Quant Z said with a grin.

“I know. Make the arrangements two weeks from now. No need to keep things too secret. A naked scheme is still a naked scheme,” I joked. Quant Z just smiled and left. He wouldn’t be prying into the specifics of my plan. He knew I was going to compartmentalize things.

There was a knock on my door shortly after Quant Z left. “Enter,” I called out and Dark Avenger entered. He sauntered over to the chair in front of my desk and sat down.

“You really stirred things up. Thanks for the heads up that you would be releasing that information publicly, I was able to frame a rival,” he said with a grin.

“Now comes the hardest gambit yet,” I replied.

“One that I can’t help you with,” he said. “Oh, don’t stare at me like that. You know that after you went public the vaults would be locked up tight, incredibly tight.”

“Were you able to make the preparations for Forged Fang?” I asked.

“Yep. The insiders there helped me out. Getting the items you wanted wasn’t cheap though. I know you covered the costs but getting them made and in the hands of the right people was a hassle,” he said.

“As long as everything else is in position. It is time to create a crisis. Three weeks from now, after I have dealt with HeroTen. That is when I want you to act. The timing isn’t as critical as knowing the backup location,” I said.

“Seems like a lot for just the location,” he replied.

“You know the location is one of the most valuable things. They are likely to use a tertiary location for the item I want after they move their main vault,” I said.

“Oh, you have the locations of all three vaults. You just want to rule out two of them,” Dark Avenger said, grasping a portion of my plan. It had taken me way too long to come up with everything, and some parts I would be making it up as I went along, but the key parts were being sorted out now.

“Yes,” I said. The Green Leaf wouldn’t be stored in any vault. They would keep it with a mobile attack force. I had already received the plans that the Forged Fang was implementing. Foolish to think a guild that used to be mine could keep any secrets from me. Even with their purges and security measures, I had super fans that would happily share information with me. The other big problem with super guilds, was that information leaked out no matter what. While they were publicly making it appear they were fortifying their main vault and that was their plan, they had two back up plans.

A fake plan to move the item to another secure vault and one for a team of Champions to take the item and protect it in a secure location they could defend. I knew everything. Along with the fact that the powers that were in charge would come up with another secret plan, ignoring the other two back up plans, even though only one of them was supposed to be fake. This was because Dark Avenger was secretly selling information to one of the Illuminati who was using that information to secure their position in the super guild, while also informing his leader Tim, who informed me. It was enough to make my head hurt and I was the person who had the most complete information about everything going on.

A game of spies and misdirection. Dark Avenger was working for me, even if he didn’t think so. While my connection with the Illuminati was a big rumor, there was no proof, and my advice over the years had only brought the leader Tim closer to me. A sword without a hilt was still a sword in my hand.

I would use Quant Z’s plan to get the Yellow Pus instead of targeting the Super Guild Great Bear directly. Forged Fang would suffer as well, once I made my move. And HeroTen was going to be embarrassed heavily. Everything was slowly coming togeather. Looking at Dark Avenger sitting across from me, he was useful, but untrustworthy as a shadow. Well, he was trustworthy in how he was untrustworthy. He might even know that I knew he was selling information about my actions.

The spy games were enough to give anyone a headache. I had a hard enough time keeping up myself. There were plots, counter plots, and people doing their own thing. That didn’t take into dark guilds, NPCs, and various other powers trying to control the situation. It was a complete madhouse trying to scheme properly.

While the super guilds eventually got a decent handle on things in my past go around, right now was the time of chaos as they were all sorting out their growing pains and dealing with infiltrators. The other dark guilds were no doubt ready to pounce on any chaos I caused.

That was why the main thing was to create opportunities, not have a hard and fast plan that I was trapped in. I would be burning some resources on this plan, but the primary goal was to create uncertainty in my actions, while getting more accurate information. That was the one big weakness of super guilds, they couldn’t pivot quickly. If my plans failed, that was fine, as long as I wasn’t killed. I could always try again and again. I had an entire year based on the betting terms I had set up.

If I had been in their position, I would have just stored the item with the NPCs and be done with all the drama. But even that wasn’t a surefire way to keep an item safe, unless a super guild was willing to pay. QAI might hand wave currency transactions, but with physical items, they had to be moved and could be stolen. While the intelligence apparatus of the various countries had been linked in with the super guilds, they were still taking time to come to an understanding of everything that could be done in terms of skills and counter measures. Also, they were run by bureaucrats, who often made poor in game decisions.

Initiative was rarely rewarded while mistakes were punished in super guilds. That was why I felt confident in what would occur once I knew the plans at the highest level. It wasn’t just the Illuminati either, many players sent in information on their own or were willing to help me out. I had a huge a huge fan base across the entire world. The public declaration against the super guilds had only spurred my popularity among the masses to new heights.

Even my haters had to grudgingly give me some respect. While they didn’t like to and tried to downplay my accomplishments, it wasn’t going very well. People liked someone who spoke their mind to those in power. I had one last chance to really deal a heavy blow against the super guilds before they became too entrenched.

That was the depressing part of all of this. Even if I won, it would only be a momentary victory, against the relentless bureaucracy and the sheer power the super guilds had under their control. Still, I would make my mark and try to ascend to even greater heights in this final confrontation, leveraging everything I had.

While the super guilds were stressing out about money and performance reports, I was having quite a bit of fun in our game of cat and fox. That cats were quite large, but I was flexible, agile, and still able to give the oversized cats a good thrashing, just like I had given Apex and the other larger guilds before them.

It was that kind of attitude that got me into this situation in the first place, but I found it hilarious. These massive governments spending billions upon billions of dollars to counter me and my actions. Exponential was too big of a part of daily life of everyone and couldn’t be ignored, but these powers didn’t have a strong enough grip on things yet in game.

I wasn’t concerned about being attacked in the real world. I lived in a bunker next to a QAI node, with an elite security team constantly monitoring and protecting my position. I had reviewed the safety protocols myself, from air filtration, to food, and a real-world attack was out of the question. Beating me in game and blocking me by poaching guild members was fine, but an actual attack would have created way too much drama if I spoke out against the politicians in charge.

While bringing the shadow war to public attention was escalating things, I didn’t view it as an improper escalation after realizing what the super guilds were plotting. The real trick for them would be minimizing damage of my schemes while trying to kill me.

There was an in game bounty on my head as well, which had reached 17,220 platinum the last time I had checked. A life changing sum of money. I had no doubt that after my most recent schemes, it would increase even more. There had been a couple of attempts over the years, but they had all failed.

Killing me with my life saving items wasn’t easy. Also, my level of 120 had been helping quite a bit. Now that the other leading players were reaching this level, I would have to level up after getting a Divine skill. I had more than enough experience and my weight reduction title was at Unburdened, or 35% after killing 10 million monsters while heavily encumbered.

The only other equipped title I had made progress in was my noble title. I was now a Countess, getting a 5% stat boost instead of 3%. Climbing higher in the ranks of human nobility carried too much risk. I was still a low ranking noble as a Countess. The next rank of Earl was considered a high ranking noble.

I was also considered a Herald for the Human god and an Adversary of the Dark Gods after having pissed off over seven of the dark gods. I think it was about nine, but I wasn’t sure. It was a shame I couldn’t have those titles equipped, but even if two of my titles gave me extra title slots, I didn’t have enough. I hadn’t had any luck on locating a Divine Poison for the Poison Master title. That was one I really wanted and had spent considerable effort into trying to get. Unfortunately, divine poisons were completely beyond my reach at the moment.

It would have been nice to level up ahead of time to get more of that absolute level advantage on my side, but my build was incredibly solid. No one had better skills than me. Having 16 Heirloom ranked skills equipped with 7 of them being unique was excessive. Most Champions only had 3 to 5 unique Legendary ranked skills. That wasn’t even counting my two unique pieces of equipment, my mask and sword.

Despite my best efforts I hadn’t found a good set of armor. I had a Pendant of the Human God instead of a Lesser Pendant, boosting my Luck by 6% instead of 3%. I had also paid to improve my rings to make them Infused Lucky Bunny Rings that gave a 5% Luck bonus instead of 3% each. While there was still work to be done, I was out of time. It was time to start taking this final test against the super guilds whether I was ready or not.