— CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT —

  The Show Goes On

  +Leo+

  - Nov. 4th -

  "So, what's the next step for the Vanguard?" I asked. "Now that the gardens are cleared, where do you go? Has the front gate unlocked?"

  I was on the central platform of the gardens, talking to one of the tour guides - a bored Tempest member named Matt. He pointed over to the west side. "They found a hidden door over there. Supposedly it'll take us into the curtain wall. That's all we've got so far."

  "Oh, is it available to the public?" I asked. "Could you tell me how to get there?"

  "Yeah, sure." He pushed himself off the stone balustrade and lead the way down the stairs into the labyrinth. The flower beds beside the paths were barren, littered with desiccated petals and tangles of brown vines. The vibrancy of life was almost completely gone, leaving the place deathly still and quiet.

  "Man, this place has seen better days." I said, running my hand along a thorny bramble. It snapped dryly at the touch.

  "Yeah, it all started falling apart after the last boss was killed - the mobs stopped spawning and some NPC caretakers showed up. That's how we found the door, actually - they run away when approached, and someone followed one to it."

  "Interesting. So without the dryad tending to the place, they had to send out replacements, exposing a service entrance."

  "However you want to justify it - it's a breadcrumb pointing us to the next phase."

  We descended into the cave levels underneath the mountainous zone in the northwest. The air turned surprisingly warm as we entered a stretch of volcanic tunnels lit dimly by orange-red crystals embedded in the walls, just bright enough to light the way.

  "What does that mean for the Vanguard's tours?" I asked. "With the mobs gone, I imagine things will change."

  Matt shrugged. "They're keeping patrols for now, in case something comes up, but maybe they'll open it up soon."

  "Say, how are things with the Vanguard - internally? After that last boss kill?"

  Matt side-eyed me. "What are you, a drama reporter?"

  "No, no; I'm with the Protectorate. Just looking for new lore. I can't help being curious!"

  "Well, it started to get pretty nasty, but then the World Guard stepped in. Demanded we find a way to work together better. They threatened to cut Tempest and Steel Rage off from official support if we didn't shape up."

  "And?"

  "From what we can see, there's only one way forward, so we'll have to cooperate more. That's cooled things down."

  "Will they stay that way?"

  "Who knows?"

  We turned a corner and the narrow tunnel opened into a small chamber. Thick, wilting vines draped over a door engraved into the dark brick wall. I approached, reaching out to touch the cold stone. That brought up a list of materials, just like the resource gates that had been unlocked throughout the gardens.

  Looking down the list, I said, "Oh. This doesn't look too much harder than what we've seen already."

  "That right there is tier 2 materials." Matt said.

  "Will that make it harder to open?" I asked.

  "They're saying it's going to be a slight delay." Matt leaned against the wall, crossing his arms. "The gatherers have been focused on tier 1 stuff so far - it's easier for the low combat-level folks to get, and that's all the gates have needed up to this point. We'll get there eventually."

  "What's everyone doing in the meantime?"

  "Grinding levels and gearing up. We all want to be ready for whatever's behind that door."

  "Alright, thanks for the info!" I pulled out my camera and snapped a few shots of the door, then turned to photograph the dying plants to measure if they continued to wilt or if it leveled off.

  It sounded like I wouldn't be able to talk to the NPC caretakers directly, so I left the Citadel.

  I descended down the motte along North Boulevard. Halfway down the slope, I turned off the road toward the Loyalist camp and waved at one of the NPC guards standing near the entrance. "Hey there!"

  She nodded back. "Good day, adventurer."

  I approached with a friendly smile. "I'm Leonard. Could I ask your name?"

  A basic introduction - it was a simple little trick that triggered the game to start dragging out a unique personality for the NPC - get the juices flowing and all.

  "Bethany." she said.

  "Howdy, Bethany! Do you mind if I ask you a couple questions?"

  She shifted her stance, standing a little less rigidly and moving her spear to her other hand. "Go ahead."

  "What are you doing out here? You know, instead of being in there?" I pointed up to the Citadel.

  "My orders are to guard the camp in case the King sends anything out to attack the populace."

  "Has he done anything like that yet?"

  Bethany shook her head, glancing up at the fortress towering over us nervously. "No. He's still acting like he wants us to come inside."

  "That's freaky. What's he planning?"

  "That's exactly the problem." she said. "The Prince and Spymaster don't want to commit their forces until the first line of defences are dismantled."

  "How are Nicolaus and Alephred getting on? Everything okay in that department?"

  "Amiable enough." Bethany said. "The one thing we can agree on is that lunatic in there is a threat to us all. The Lieutenant and that Livitha girl stir up drama now and then, but none of us are paying too much attention to them. It's hard to focus on much else with that cursed keep looming over you. The things we hear at night..." She shivered, her eyes haunted. "There are beasts in that citadel. I reckon it would only take an order from the King to send some uncontrollable terror out to wash us away. Praise the Goddess she made him so complacent."

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  "What do you hear?" I asked.

  "Distorted screams from somewhere inside. Like tortured souls wailing in agony."

  "Have you ever seen what's making them?"

  Bethany scoffed. "You think I'm daft enough to go up there at night? This is still enemy territory."

  "What about a few nights ago - when the adventurers cleared out the last of the King's forces in the garden? Did you see anything then?"

  "You should know that better than me. You were with that-"

  "Hu-tuh-tuh!" I quickly silenced her, glancing around at the few people wandering up the motte. None of them were paying us any mind. "Easy there! That... forget that happened, please! I'm asking for your thoughts on... whatever that was."

  Bethany shook her head. "All we saw were otherworldly lights and horrible screams. The only thing I can say is that, whatever the King is doing, it's twisted beyond imagination." She lowered her head. "Goddess, if this is part of your plan, then pray enlighten us. Did we wrong you? Show us a path."

  I gave her my cheesiest smile. "Don't worry. We'll find the road forward - together."

  Leaving the motte, I walked through the city and jotted down notes on what I'd found.

  Stuffed off in the southwest corner of Celestia Grand was the city's magic academy - an ancient castle with dozens of needle-like towers rising out of it. Satellite annexes sat on islands of glowing crystal orbiting lazily above the perimeter. Buttresses and bridges strung the towers together, spinning a web of skyways and supports that cropped up all over the disk-shaped main grounds. It had once been the center of magical learning throughout the realm, but now it was the headquarters of the Protectorate.

  I passed through the gates and entry courtyard. In what had originally been an empty entrance chamber, they had set up a front counter with signs pointing off into the surrounding hallways - the mental health services division, the school and auditoriums, the orphanage, and where I was headed - the Wiki.

  With a quick wave to the clerk, I passed right though into the northern library wing. Sandwiched between the staff offices and laboratories at the building's core and the auditoriums and classrooms to the north, the library had undergone a metamorphosis. Gone were the academy's original tomes, relocated to the other libraries. In their place, everything anyone could possibly want to know about Dawnfall's mechanics, lore, and history was meticulously cataloged and organized. Copies of every newspaper and official announcement, lists of information on mobs, quests, and backstories - all painstakingly compiled and curated for public consumption. And that was just what they had out for display! Some of the storage rooms in the heart of the university were packed with more - project proposals on where more information needed to be gathered, general notes, and letters and such that had been sent in with information that needed to be checked and added to the compiled volumes and guides.

  It was a monumental undertaking, and it was routinely understaffed. We did what we could, but there was always another shelf to comb through.

  In the farthest reaches of the library, I spotted Geiger, one of the curators, sorting through a bin of books. His gray hair was mussed, and his eyes darted over the pages with a youthful energy.

  As I approached, I held up my notebook. "Got some new bits for you, Geiger!"

  The old man's face lit up, and he clapped excitedly - like a child. "Oho! What do we have this time?"

  I handed over the notebook and watched as he flipped through it. "So, the Loyalists and Resistance are holding together peacefully, eh? Interesting, very interesting. There's been little open conflict between them in the known world so far. Of course, their paths haven't crossed much either. The Resistance has dug in its heels in Townsville and seems to hold sway over the eastern side of the world. Meanwhile, the Loyalists have a firm grip on the west. And it looks like each faction has its own leveling route, taking players up to level 60 within their respective territories. That's where the paths converge and the faction-specific towns start popping up."

  I nodded, leaning against one of the bookshelves. "That's also when those falsified insignias wear off, right?"

  "Exactly." he said. "That seems to imply that the relationship between the factions will disintegrate when that phase of the story comes up. I wonder if the trouble will spread backward into old zones - the dynamic quest system seems robust enough to handle a global political shift."

  "Where are we in the story right now, do you think?" I asked.

  He rubbed his beard in thought. "If I had to hazard a guess, I would say... the 11th episode!"

  Geiger let out a hearty cackle. "Let's take a closer look, shall we?" He spread out some notes on the table. "Everything in the gardens so far has had auto-downscaling to force players into a cap of level 15. Now, with the next resource gate requiring tier 2 materials, that means the next leg will likely be above that - probably 20 to 25, maybe even 30. Most regions seem to span about 15 levels, after all. If we correlate the phases of the world - the region levels - to phases of the story, that implies there are 7 'tiers' to the story. Four batches bringing us up to 60, then three more to the cap of 100."

  "Do we know how many resource tiers there are in total?" I asked.

  Geiger shook his head. "No, the highest we've seen so far is tier 4, and there are still plenty of things we can't harvest yet."

  I let out a long breath. "So assuming 7 phases and we're just finishing the first... Sounds like we've got a long road ahead of us."

  Geiger nodded, his expression growing pensive. "And it's going to go beyond the Citadel, if the factions are going to get involved." He flipped through my notebook again. "For today, let's try to solve what the Citadel is trying to show us. We still don't have a lot of answers about what's really going on in there - nothing new about 'why' it's in the state it's in. Where is this corruption coming from?"

  "You think there might be clues in what we've covered so far?" I asked.

  "Possibly, possibly." Geiger tapped the page, lost in thought. "The bosses in the gardens appear to be animals captured from across the world and infested with this corruption. And that site out in the Celestial Forest proves this is something cropping up elsewhere too."

  "The gardens themselves are a map!" I exclaimed, looking up at him with wide eyes. "Has anyone checked the real world locations that correspond to each of the garden's boss arenas? Maybe there's an 'X' out there waiting to be found!"

  Geiger's eyebrows shot up. "An interesting thought indeed." He handed my notebook back to me and turned to a nearby table. He hurriedly pushed the books on it aside and laid out a large map of the world. "Let's see now... Counting this final Gardens boss you say the NPCs were talking about, there have been 10 bosses so far. But Oxtongue and the Sentinels weren't in the gardens proper, so let's put them aside for the moment."

  "And we don't know anything about what really happened with the 10th boss either." I added.

  Geiger picked up a pen. "Right. That leaves 7 in the garden labyrinth itself - 3 in the west wing and 4 in the east. In the west there was... the kangaroo rat in Desert, the lava fiend under the volcanic mountains of the Line of Fire, and a life dragon's lair at what corresponds to Stonehearth City."

  "That's strange." I said. "Could there really be something hidden right there in the city?"

  "Well, that ominous black tower smack in the center of the place is certainly suspicious enough! Definitely warrants an investigation, I'd say."

  I said, "The Desert site, though, is way out in the middle of the Dusty Hills. It'll be quite the trek to get out there. The nearest train station is all the way in Faustenburg."

  "Not to mention it's a level 25-30 zone." Geiger added. "Only the most dedicated levelers could venture out there safely right now. And the Line of Fire is level 80 territory - no way we're getting anywhere near there anytime soon."

  I nodded. "Alright, let's look at the east side then."

  Geiger drew some more circles on the map. "There was the crocodile in the Black Marshes, a gorilla in the King's Woods, a bear outside Florin, and the grove of that dryad - Sylvia - in the Heart of the Woodsea. The gorilla was in a jungle environment right on the border between the Deep King's Woods and Celestial Forest. That's not too far off from the Star Marsh - with some fudging for scale, that could be where it's pointing."

  "But what does that say about the accuracy of the rest of the map?" I asked.

  "It means we've got a lot of ground to cover! The crocodile corresponds to one of the Marsh zones - the Marsh Delta, to be precise. Then there should be something else lurking in the forests outside Florin."

  And then there was Sylvia... "A dryad - the only 'intelligent' creature we've fought so far. Could that mean anything?"

  "It's always possible. Where did she come from? Are there more like her out there? Was she corrupted before or after coming to the Citadel?"

  "I think that one has some promise." I said.

  "Are you going to investigate it?"

  I nodded firmly. "I think I will."

  "Well then," Geiger said, "be sure to read up on everything we have about that zone before you go charging off!"

  "I will, don't worry. You want to come along and help me out?"

  Geiger chuckled and shook his head. "Oh no, I'm afraid I can't. The next train to Stonehearth leaves in an hour, and I intend to be on it to start looking into that lead!"

  "Alright then, looks like we've both got our hands full. Good luck out there!"