97. Aura

After saying farewell to Leo, I returned to Briarton to rest for the night.  In the morning, I met with Max again and inquired as to whether he had a throne tucked away somewhere for me.  He did, in one of my properties.  Once it was located, it was simply a matter of arriving there, attuning to the nearby nexus point, and sitting in the throne itself.

There was a position available to oversee each of the three vineyards that belonged to me personally, and I appointed Leonard to each of them immediately.  Afterward, I spent some time exploring the menu of the throne.  Many things were exactly the same as my other throne.  A few things were highlighted, and when I asked the system what the highlights meant, it informed me that it was the system’s attempt to bring a change to my attention.  So I looked through those items quite quickly.

I noticed, among other details, that two guilds had accomplished the guild quest to establish a formal allegiance with me.  I took a small break to [Scribe] them each a letter of congratulations.  I wasn’t certain how much they would appreciate the gesture or if the resulting letter would be an item of consequence, but it seemed like the thing to do.  With [Enchanted Ink and Parchment], the document was virtually impossible to modify.  And I dated it very clearly, adding [Magic Seal: Personal Crest].

I figured that in the worst case, they could put the item up somewhere in their guild building, if they had one.  Like the one that <Nethersong Warriors> had in Zhesa city.  It would make a pretty good decoration, I thought.  Or maybe they could flash it around to Natives to prove their allegiance with me and use it to influence them.  I was pretty okay with either option, so I put the items in my inventory to have someone from my guild deliver later.

My guild seemed to like playing courier for me, so who was I to deny them?

After that, I reviewed my active quests list.  Not the ones that I had accepted to complete myself, but the ones that I had either issued, or that one of my allied quest givers had issued on my behalf.

There were a lot.

I was actually a little frightened by how many there were, because they all gave Reputation with House Jeoran.  Somehow, the system noticed my concern, and a menu opened up.  With the system highlighting the potential quest rewards, I came to a startling realization.

“I have two Reputations!” I declared, almost jumping off of my throne.

“What?” Tarisha asked.  She had been standing nearby, quickly interacting with her own system as she sent and received messages while I was busy.

“My quests, they issue two separate reputations.  There’s Reputation with HouseJeoran.  And there’s reputation with HailJeoran,” I explained.

“Oh?” she asked.  She perked up, focusing on me very carefully.  “I’m guessing that it’s much easier to earn Rep with your House than it is with you directly, isn’t it?”

“Um, I’m not certain.  I’ve got to figure this stuff out some more.  I might open another ticket to ask Thomas what the difference is exactly,” I said.

“Would you like to hear my suspicions?” Tarisha inquired.

“Yes,” I said immediately.

“I believe your personal rep can only be gained by interacting with you directly.  Which would mean that myself and members of your guild and bodyguard team likely have more Hail Jeoran Reputation than anyone else in the world.  I suspect that House Jeoran Reputation is rewarded through your associated and support Natives.  Your faction reputation and your personal reputation are likely synergistic in that if you gain personal reputation, you gain faction reputation by default.  Maybe even at an increased ratio.  However, I believe that either the reverse isn’t true at all, or you will only gain a reduced amount of your personal reputation for every point of faction rep.”  She considered her words for a moment, then nodded.  “Yup, that’s how I’d set things up.  It makes sense.”

“Why didn’t someone tell me sooner?” I asked.

She laughed.  “I would have had I known myself!  Hail, you have to understand that there are a lotof reputations and factions in this game.  In order for Reputation to be listed as a quest reward, it has to be above a certain threshold.  Reputation losses are listed more prominently than reputation gains.  Aside from that, all of my active quests for you list ‘Reputation with Hail Jeoran’ as a reward, not ‘House Jeoran.’  I have no idea what the actual numerical value the system has listed for my reputation with you, although I suppose I could get it measured by visiting a soothsayer.”

“Huh,” I said.  “I wish there was a way to tell them apart at a glance.”

I’d no sooner said it than another menu highlighted, and I quickly opened it up.  An option in the submenu was highlighted, and when I opened that up, another option was indicated.  That, it seemed, was the option I was looking for, listed as [Change Background Statistical Record Visual IndicationColor and Priority].  The name was extremely unhelpful, but when I dove into the menu I realized that it was allowing me to do exactly what I’d asked.  I could change the color of the aura’s I’d been seeing.

The immediate change I’d made was to differentiate the colors of blue for my personal Reputation with my faction Reputation.  I chose a darker indigo blue for my personal Rep, and a sky blue for my faction.  I did likewise for the negative Reputation indicators, with a darker red to indicate negative personal Reputation and a lighter color for Faction.

With my primary goal done, I continued to explore the menu, as there were far more options to choose from.  However, many of them were unavailable.  An extremely large number of reputations were listed, but it seems that I wasn’t allowed to force the system to display an aura for them.  I did make several important discoveries.

One was that while the Assassin’s guild reputation was an option, it was not one of the reputations systems that I could set to show me an aura.  I had misinterpreted the black aura I had seen around the woman who had visited Storm’s manor as I had been leaving.  She might have been an assassin.  Probably was, according to the way I heard that she fought.  But that wasn’t why her aura was black.

Aside from my two reputations, there were two other reputations which my interface was already set up to see.  I could see [Favor of Thedum], which was defaulted to appear as a silver aura that was nearly white.  And I could see [Favor of Nyxandra].  And I couldn’t stop myself from shuddering, because that was a name that should not be spoken, written, or thought.  It made me think of a shack, in the deadlands, filled with dead and rotting bodies.

“Is something wrong, Lord Hail?” Tarisha inquired.

“I figured out what a black aura means,” I informed her.  “And it’s worse than I thought.  Maybe she was at Storm’s manor for the Assassin’s guild, but the reason I singled her out was because she has been farming reputation with the adversary.”

“Oh,” Tarisha said.  “She did not have the [Mark of Sin], or the [Brand of Cain].”

“I know,” I said.  “That’s what scares me.  A red aura means that they have negative reputation with me.  It has nothing to do with anything else.  Everyone I’ve seen with [Mark of Sin] has been red.  I’ve seen only one Traveler with an aura of black.  Which means that you don’t need [Mark of Sin] to work for the adversary, and I’ve been wrong about that and a bunch of other things as well.”

“I see,” Tarisha said.  “There is at least one positive aspect to this revelation, Lord Hail.  You can see reputation with the adversary!  The value of that ability shouldn’t be overlooked.”

I nodded, and probed further into the menu.  I found that I could change the thresholds at which auras would appear, and made another frightening realization.  I could not set the threshold for the adversary’s aura nearly as low as I wanted to.  The assassin woman must have had a lot of Favor in order to have an aura at all, which was scary, but what terrified me was that there might be hundreds or thousands of Travelers with less Favor that I couldn’t identify because my ability to see auras wasn’t sensitive enough.

And I was very worried thatthey could have Favor with the adversary at the same time as they had reputation with me, or my faction.  I wouldn’t know it until they crossed a threshold which was, to my opinion, entirely too forgiving.

There was one more revelation I had while this menu was open, although it was minor in comparison.  I could now see Favor with Eclipse as well, although it hadn’t been assigned an aura color yet.  So I set it as a dark purple, and ranked its priority down below everything else.  It was interesting, but less important to me than the auras that had already been assigned.  I would have to make a note to check this menu occasionally though, in case any new options unlocked.

I went back to browsing my active quest lists.  Turns out that I could actually cancel them as well, if I wanted.  Or change the terms.  Or see how many times it had been issued and completed.  It was all very interesting, but while I was exploring this option, an alert broke through the menu that arrested my attention.

Gideon Lachlann has come online.

I froze.  Father.  I … didn’t know what to do.

Gideon Lachlann has invited you to a party

Accept?

Yes

No

I hesitated.  But there was never any real doubt about what I was going to do next.  I clicked yes.

“Hey kid,” Father said through voice chat.  “Did I catch you at a bad time?”

“Not really,” I said.  “I’m … doing stuff.  But it can wait.”

“That’s good.  Can we meet?  I, I have some things that I would like to say to you.  In person, if possible.  I can come to you if you want, where are you?”

“Thorn March.”

“Where?” he said.  “Wait, seriously, where!? It sounds familiar but I can’t place it.”

“Um, it’s one of the lands that Grandfather gave me when he made me an Earl,” I reminded him.  “I guess it’s known to Travelers as a ‘low-competition zone?’”

“Oh, yeah, that’s it,” he said.  “Um, so, I can’t actually come to you then.  I was never a ‘low competition sort of guy.’  Is there somewhere we can meet?  Neutral ground, I guess?”

I thought for a moment, then nodded.  “Niles Inn, in Eastmill.”

“Eastmill?  That’s outside Zhesa, right?  Let me check if I – yeah, I can Travel there.  I’ll head there now and wait for you, okay?  I have today, so you can take your time if you want.  I don’t want to inconvenience you, so if you need to finish up the ‘stuff’ you were doing that’s--”

“I’ll be right there,” I promised.

“Wait,” Tarisha said.  “Lord Hail, please let me send a team there first.  This could be a trap.”

“He’s my father, Tarisha, he’s not going to ambush me!” I said.

“Tarisha?  That’s the hot chick, right?” Father said through party chat.  He sighed.  “I didn’t actually hear what she said, but it was probably derogatory and less than I deserve.  Hail, look.  I’ll be alone, but you can bring whoever you want.  I’m not planning on hiding anything from you.  I’ve got some things I want to say, and I’ve got no shame left at this point, so I don’t really care if your friends hear about what a shitbag I really am.  I just figured you deserve to know the truth about me and what’s happening.  That’s it.”

“I’ll be right there,” I said, and, ignoring Tarisha’s protests, I opened the Fast Travel menu and traveled back to Eastmill.