79. Fallout

The Fast Travel system kicked me out next to the nexus point in Eastmill.  I dropped a few sentences in guild chat to let everyone know that I was alright, that I was tired, and that I was planning to hide and rest for a few hours before dealing with the aftermath of the battleground.  They were, perhaps understandably, still very excited and confused.  Most of them had participated, and a lot of the discussion seemed to be speculation over what the rewards were going to be, speculation over how my ability to start battlegrounds would affect the game in the future, and our guild specifically.

Everyone was talking at once and the chat screen was flickering by almost too fast to read anything, but I got enough responses to my comments that I was certain my friends wouldn’t be too worried about me.  I also sent a private message to Tarisha informing her of my location and intentions.  She informed me that my Dusk Guard would be arriving in Eastmill within moments to keep me safe, but that she herself would be occupied in planning for and dealing with the fallout of the battleground.

I didn’t wait for my bodyguards, but instead knocked on Master Niles’ door.  The innkeeper appeared annoyed when he answered, but he schooled his expression swiftly into one of professional hospitality.  He was dressed in a night robe, but he cheerfully served me a cold sandwich and showed me to a warm room, where I collapsed into the bed without changing out of my clothes.

I awoke late in the morning, and in the common room waiting for me were six members of <Peasant’s Revenge>.  They made apologies for Tarisha’s absence, explaining that she was extremely busy ‘putting out fires.’  I’m not certain if they were speaking in metaphor or not, but I trusted Tarisha to have her priorities straight, so I knew whatever she was doing was probably more important than simply guarding me.  I ate a hearty meal and tipped Master Niles generously for inconveniencing him the night before, then one of my guardians who happened to be Mage opened a portal to bring us all back to Ebbyvale.

We emerged in front of the Temple of Thedum, and the first thing I noticed was that the entire town was instanced.  There were five instances layered on top of each other, although it seems that the one that we were occupying had just been created.  It was originally empty of Travelers, but moments after we arrived my guildmates began zoning in from the more populous instances; apparently everyone who had [Mark of Karma] had gotten a prompt allowing them to sync into my instance when I arrived.

Ebbyvale was busy.  Not my instance so much, but the other four were absolutely flooded with Travelers.  My friends estimated that there were a hundred thousand or more Travelers running around in the other instances.  And most of them were looking for me.

I was less than enthused.  I was overwhelmed.  I was still tired, despite having had a few hours of sleep.  At least the system was providing me with a private instance, so that I didn’t have to face a wave of random Travelers all demanding my attention.

However, I did need to deal with the aftermath.  I sent a few messages, asking the leaders of <Nethersong Mavericks> and <Peasant’s Revenge> to join me in the ruins of Mooncrest Manor.  Then I called forth Shadow, and together with my small entourage we returned to the site of the first Battleground since the opening of the Gates of TirNiki.

The damage to the building was extensive.  Not as bad as the ruins of Zhesa castle once the raid was destroyed, as most of the structure was still standing, but the roof had fallen in in several places.  Walls had been knocked out.  Many areas were still smoldering, although the fires themselves seemed to be under control.

I was worried that the throne itself would be damaged or destroyed, but while the throne room showed signs of the battle, my seat of power itself was untouched.  I let out a sigh of relief and plopped down into it.  While I waited for everyone to arrive, I checked my status screen.  Despite everything else being, as my friends would call it, a giant clusterfuck, I had gained at least one undeniably good outcome from last night.

I had gained four levels.

[Blue Boxes]

It was like I’d thought after facing the bandits in the village; killing Travelers was in fact a very efficient method of leveling up.  A significant portion of the experience had come simply from the completion bonus of the battleground itself, but I had gotten large amounts of experience from every kill I had participated in.  If I hadn’t been forced to hide through most of the battle, I might have gotten all the way to level forty.  Unfortunately, the terms of the battle had made that unpractical.  As did the death penalty I would suffer due to [The Gray Man’s Touch].

I was still resentful over that curse, but I didn’t know what to do about it.  I could have it removed by resetting myself to level one, but I wasn’t willing to do that.  I could issue quests to kill the Gray Man, but the consequences of that would likely be even worse than having my level reset.  Thedum would abandon me, and Uncle Storm would lose his primary obstacle in claiming the throne.  And the act itself was simply unconscionable to me.  No, I wasn’t even willing to consider it, and I wished that Thedum hadn’t put the possibility into my head.

The topic of conversation for most of the Travelers who were waiting with me was, of course, the battleground and their participation in it.  Quite a few of my friends from <Nethersong Mavericks> had participated, but most of them admitted that they had gotten ejected rather quickly.  The ones who hadn’t explained that the other instances were rather straightforward compared to mine.  The bandit leaders hadn’t moved throughout the fight, and once their locations had become known it had been a simple matter of swarming them until they retreated.

The bandit leaders were, apparently, quite cowardly, and would retreat quite readily if they were confronted by a group that outnumbered them, or when their team’s Morale points dropped too low.  They had lacked the tactical advantage of hiding inside the manor itself, and had been forced to guard their immobile bandit leader with dozens of Travelers to keep them from retreating.  This had put them at a disadvantage on the rest of the map, allowing my allies to claim spawn points and drain the enemy’s Morale points over time in midfield.

Most of the bandits had complained that they had no way to win other than to ‘turtle’ and hope that the lowest level bracket managed to find and kill me, but that wasn’t a winning tactic in the end.  Once an instance was cleared, the participating Travelers had the option of ‘syncing down,’ merging into a lower level instance.  My victorious allies were quickly able to spread their winning strategies with their juniors.  The bandits got the same privilege, of course, but they still saw it as unfair.  Once the instances began to merge with each other, everything had snowballed, coming to the abrupt conclusion.

Tens of thousands of Travelers had taken part.  Now, in the aftermath, there was a significant amount of flexing, trash talking, and complaining going on in the forums.  My allies were bragging about overcoming unfavorable terms, while the bandits were complaining that the combat algorithms of the bandit leaders were terrible.  The mercenaries were mostly just bragging, although several of them were complaining that they didn’t get better participation rewards compared to the other two factions.

There were a lotof videos from the battle floating around on the forums.  Severalsuper threads had been created simply to allow Travelers a place to link their participation footage, and although it had only been a few hours since the battle, many editors were already putting out rushed montages and ‘best of’ videos using the submitted footage.  I was quite prominent in the most popular threads, although so many of the commentators were being overly harsh with their criticisms of my performance and my allies.  Some accused me of cowardice for hiding for most of the battle, while others criticized my combat capabilities.  I got the feeling that most of them were either trolling, or they were ‘salty’ because they had been on the losing side.

I indulged my interest in the matter for a few minutes.  Then I put it out of my mind without commenting.  I sort of wished that I could undo everything and fade back into relative obscurity, but I knew that wasn’t an option.  My only course of action was to plan for the future, which meant that it was time to dig deeper into the management options which my throne unlocked.

Travelers and Natives both began to trickle into the throne room.  My Dusk Guard kept a perimeter up around the throne itself, with one healer keeping a constant stream of protective spells on me.  Her shielding spell would probably absorb three or for times my maximum health before failing.  I don’t think it was necessary, and it sort of tickled and distracted me, but I tolerated it in silence as my allies gathered.

Three mages working together put up a temporary summoning chamber in the ballroom that I had escaped through the night before.  It was expensive, reagent wise, but it greatly expedited getting everyone together.

Daemon, Dimple, and four other officers from <Nethersong Mavericks> came.  Including the guild leader herself, Klarisha, whom I hadn’t actually met before.  Or rather, I had, but I hadn’t been informed that she was the Gee El.  Many of my friends were there, including Phil, Laurant, Larissa, Thena, Peafowlet, Sellamander, Stan, Wesle, and Corinth.  Travelers that I had actually played and partied with in the past.

At my request, Daemon had reached out to Randal, the architect who had helped me escape a kidnapping attempt back during the mayhem when Zhesa Castle had first been turned into a dungeon.

Among the Native occupants, Bell, the old woman who had been imprisoned for allegedly spitting in Arkan’s drink, was in attendance.  As were her two sons and their wives.  Six merchants were hugging the walls nervously.  A blacksmith was repeatedly challenging Phil to a wrestling match.  A number of other villagers were standing around, waiting for proceedings to begin.

I noticed, somewhat idly, that they all bowed when they entered the throne room.  Except that they didn’t do it properly.  They should have covered their heart with their left hand, and braced the other hand behind their back before and during the dip, but they did it backwards.  It took me perhaps longer than it should have to realize that this was the same error that Irvine had made, and which I had neglected to correct.  When I inquired, I learned that he had followed me to Ebbyvale and spent all night and morning teaching all of the natives ‘the proper way to bow’ for their new lord.  He was still about in town somewhere, giving lessons to anyone who would listen.

I wondered for a moment if it was worth the effort to try to correct, and decided that my plate was full enough already.  Still, I requested that someone find him and bring him to the impromptu court, and one of the minor members of my guild jumped at the quest on the condition that someone share the video of everything that happened while they were gone.

The final attendees were invited by Tarisha.  They arrived through the summoning chamber one after the other.  My Dusk Guards stood up a bit straighter; either they recognized these Travelers, or they were simply responding to the levels of my new guests.  Each of them was at least level one-eighty, and they wore either armor that veritably rippled with power and enchantments, or clothes so fine and of such high fashion that they would be the talk of a royal ball.

Tarisha introduced them one by one.  Nine of the greatest endgame guilds had sent representatives to treat with me.

Including <Branded Exiles>.