HC: Pacifist | Ch. 256 - Elections?

The auction house's trading square fit nicely with the white, heavenly feel of the sky island. The glass ceiling gave shoppers a clear view of the passing clouds and the orbiting crags. Roth sat in the trading square counting castles in the clouds, and the golden coins trickling into his pocket.

Someone has purchased 10x[White Rubies] for 50 gold in Nimbus City Auction House.

Someone has purchased 20x[Eternal Stones] for 123 gold in Nimbus City Auction House.

Before setting this plan in motion, Roth had pondered whether he should flip items in auction houses or local merchant associations. After proper research, he decided that selling his goods to players was best for this endeavor. NPCs could fetch the best price for transactions of large quantities of more common materials. However, the auction houses were best for luxurious items such as rare stat boosters or precious crafting materials.

He’d first got an inkling of this when he found that he could make more money selling his leather equipment if he selected the light-trapped gear for players and ordinary gear for Ruth. Besides, he was doing this whirlwind trip to level up his broker XP. As long as he had enough profit to secure his transportation costs and had enough left to buy one more batch of goods to flip in the next town over, he would be happy about it.

Either way, coming this far was a rare opportunity, and Roth should make at least some connections with Ruth’s contact. Used to finding merchant associations by now, he located White Wing Inc., the association where Gertrud, Ruth’s teacher, worked. This would be another stop Bucky could make on his growing trading route. As he gave time for the players and guilds of Nimbus City to purchase the batch of goods he’d brought, Roth purchased a map and located the trade association where Ruth’s contact was.

He closed the Library Union he’d been using to check what items were worth flipping at his next stop. Sky Islands contained excellent farming soil, and many of the game’s best cereals were grown here. Other popular, cheap items were gasses, necessary ingredients for several potions. But to buy these, he would have to wait for all his merchandise to sell first.

Roth stood up and left toward Merchant Street. It was time to meet Gertrud.

*

Loki cracked his neck as he studied the many windows before him. He finally got a lead on the quest that would allow him to buy real estate in the game. He would still need to help O’Shaugnessy win the elections first. That wouldn't be easy, and it still required a lot of string pulling around the city.

According to the last information package, Pegasus’ move back into the capital had gone without a hitch. The guild had rebuilt its glorious, castle-like dark tent in the camp outside the capital and was already carving its niche in the local slums. After their stay in the Dark Abyss and the Rise of the Hive King event, Pegasus was among the guilds with the highest dark affinity and most evil alignment. Even though that meant that many righteous NPCs frowned upon them, it also meant that they could easily carve a niche for the guild in the capital’s slums. 

The team that had remained behind in the Dark Abyss was still systematically completing quests, hunting wild bosses, and running dungeons, hoping to find a clue about the location of a city within the Dark Abyss. Even though there weren’t many developments about it yet, only two diamonds with impossible riddles, Loki was confident that it was only a matter of time.

Scrolling down the window, he arrived at a more unsavory part of the report. A series of developments regarding the Usurpers and the Union. Lately, whenever something good happened, something equally bad accompanied it. Perhaps, he realized, this was a purposeful move from his employees. They always tried to put together information packages so that bad news always came together with good. If that was the case, he had some scolding to do. He didn't need his employees to manage what kind of information he was ready to receive. In intel, speed was paramount. 

He put together a vicious message to all his secretaries:

“Don’t presume to know when I need to know something. I want every piece of information sent to me without delay. If I find that you’ve been holding onto key information, there will be consequences.” 

Relieved to vent some of his frustration, he returned to studying the information package. The Usurpers were increasingly active, and not even Pegasus’ assassins were enough to stifle their growth. Usurper branches were starting to pop up in different cities. They had incredible funding. Loki didn't know just how many sponsors they had. 

Those publicly declaring their support for the new guild, such as Horizon Networks, their main sponsor, were all companies Loki had a beef with and that he had Zin sabotage or attack. 

Evidently, Zin also had a very efficient gold-farming team; the amount of in-game gold that was required to build a guild so strong in such a short amount of time was no joke. No amount of buying in-game currency for real-world money could get them this much. If this kept going, they would enter the top 100 in no time. 

Locating Zin was practically impossible. This was a man who knew how to keep hidden from the top law enforcement agencies on the planet. Despite all the information Loki had leaked to Zin’s enemies, he wasn’t any closer to finding him. 

This would be a proxy war in which he would have to cut Zin’s tentacles, one at a time. Zin had been intelligent enough to use Loki's enemies as a stepping stone to power, but in doing so, he left a trail of breadcrumbs. All of his backers were entities and players Loki had information on. 

Loki took a few moments to assign missions designed to sabotage, bribe, dispose of, or harm Zin's backers. Even if he only suspected a company or person was backing Zin, he relentlessly organized missions to target them. He then moved on to reading about the Union.

The Union assassination bounties had collapsed. Those idiots had somehow found a way to get the local garrison to work for them. He read the report from his spy, who had successfully become a VIP member of the Union. 

“A city-wide quest? Those lucky ducks,” Loki complained. The Union had struck gold. This kind of quest allowed thousands of craftsmen to receive a profession XP boost, which was incredible. They didn't even have to pay anything for their source materials. They could just level up at the city's expense. 

A side note in the report also caught Loki's interest. The VIP members had received a new bonus and a faction that unionized workers could no longer harm was added to the contract: the rock lizards. 

“Rock lizards,” Loki whispered as he drummed his fingers. 

Anyone with half a brain could see that the Slayer was involved in these bonuses. From what he'd heard from his spy in the Gorgons, the Slayer had auctioned VIP seats in the Union. Logic had it that the Slayer had some way of creating covenants or pacts with different factions and translating those into bonuses he could give to a select few. Just how he had managed to do this was beyond Loki. 

He would kill to have this kind of treasure. However, despite all the good this did, it had a downside: it gave Loki clues about where the Slayer was. Loki opened the world map. For someone to move from the Green Country to Rock Canyon, the nearest cities to the border would be Hadestown and Sapphira. He had plenty of Pegasus players in both cities and he kept good connections with the slavers there. 

Maybe he should activate his assets there and have them watch for anyone matching the Slayer’s description. Loki knew what equipment he wore. He also knew he had a pet kitten and a white horse. Even though players could hide or change gear, pets were something that they couldn't hide. 

He also seemed to use the quarterstaff as a weapon, which was an odd choice for someone who had always played with swords as a berserker in New Earth. He had stopped trying to make sense of what the Slayer’s new M.O. was. 

The Slayer wasn't the Slayer anymore. He was just a wild, crazy beast with a fractured, twisted mind that couldn't be grasped with logical thinking. Loki started putting together a message to his connections in Sapphira and Hadestown.

*

Roth looked down from the helicab. From here, he could see the auction house and spot the local Merchant Street. He tried locating Gertrud’s merchant association, but the building was just too unassuming for him to make out at a distance.

The minerals and gemstones in the auction house kept steadily finding buyers, but he wasn’t quite there yet. He didn’t mind it, though. He still had plenty to do before moving on to his next stop, and he would need time so that his racial skills would come off cooldown.

After finding and visiting Gertrud, Roth went to the nearest helicab stop. When he first heard the word ‘helicab,’ Roth imagined some kind of helicopter. A better way to describe it was that it was something between a flying carpet and a rickshaw.

Helicabs were large wooden platforms. Groups of telekinetic students from the local university sat on these and used their enhanced minds to pick the structure and haul passengers in exchange for some money. It was a popular way for students to make a quick buck and pay for their studies.

Roth was surprised to find the occasional player among the NPC university students. Working on the helicabs was probably part of a quest or a way to obtain reputation points with the university. 

The flying cab kept gaining altitude and traveling farther from Sky Island. As he examined the faces of his fellow passengers, he noticed no one else seemed fascinated by the sight. Everyone else aboard was a seasoned helicab passenger.

Roth’s next destination was Sunny Crag, one of the large outcrops of stone that orbited the city and home to a series of dungeons. As they approached it, he found that what had looked like patches of moss from a distance turned out to be fully-fledged forests. This wasn’t just a flying rock or boulder but a flying mountain!

As he looked back, he fully grasped the dimension of a sky island. It was a massive piece of land. Beyond the walls of Nimbus City, gardens, parks, and woodland painted the rest of the floating island in different shades of green.

“Next stop: Wind Swallows Nest!” announced one of the pilots.

Roth stepped on the tip of his toes to get a good look at the dungeon's entrance. A massive hole in the crag marked the entrance to the swallows’ nesting grounds. Countless players stood wherever there was a foothold. Seeing the familiar scene that marked any popular dungeon, Roth smiled.

The helicab slowed, allowing several players to hop off. Those with the skyling race didn’t just jump but glided out of the vehicle and landed in one of the few free crevices, a few more joining the faceless crowd. Roth could see why players who enjoyed this landscape would choose this race. It seemed very convenient.

The helicab continued making a series of stops, each dungeon busier than the last. It wasn’t just his flying carpet, either. A parade of wood platforms of different sizes formed a complex aerial choreography similar to that of a flock of birds. One by one, the passengers jumped off. Eventually, Roth heard his stop being called.

“Cloud Lizard Lair!”

Roth followed after the only other passenger who wanted to leave at this stop. He waved his hand politely.

“After you.”

“Whatever,” the stranger responded, frowning. Roth was relieved this player didn’t belong to the skyling race. Roth followed him as soon as he jumped off. This was his first time hopping off a helicab, and he wanted to make sure he didn’t fall to his death.

While the other player landed gracefully among the surrounding crowd, Roth fell, rumbling and tumbling. He heard a few complaints and screams and only stopped once he hit a stone wall.

-10

“Nyahaha.”

Roth whirled toward the source of laughter. Lin was rolling over the floor, not because of a clumsy fall but because of Roth’s sorry figure. When had he left his robes?

His face reddened. “What’s so funny, Lin?” Roth demanded. “Also, turn camouflage on! Don’t let people see you!”

“You humans meow so funny. Nyahaha. Meow, like a sack of potatoes, nyah.”

Progress in learning Felinian: 82%

Seeing how much of this sentence Roth understood, some of his anger dissipated. However, Lin wasn’t the only one laughing. At the sight of such a large man rumbling and tumbling a few other players joined in the ridicule and pointed at Roth, laughing. His face reddened again.

“Nyah? Why meow at my pet?” Lin wasn’t laughing anymore. He had asked the question with an uncharacteristic anger in his voice.

[Naughty Antics] activated. Your pet might do something bad if you’re not careful!

“Lin… calm down,” Roth tried. But it was too late.

Ch. 255 - The Warriors

INDEX

Ch. 257 - Scolding Time