RETURN OF THE SHADOW - Chapter 204

After he had talked to Rudra about his plans to develop even at the sea, he decided that he also needed to talk to Muramasa. Since, the Valhalla Raiders were already a strong influence at the Murk Water town, he felt it better to include another guild in their efforts. If a pair of cooperating guilds ended up having decent control over the coasts of the bay in regions ruled by different species, there is bound to be good trade options.

He first had to get a better picture of the town from Agua Canalon before he did anything. So, he chose to meet him at the local tavern in a private room. In a couple of minutes, he was already at the tavern talking to Agua and his teammates about the game over drinks. He started with the complexity of the game followed by sharing the difficulty the game posed to them. He then began to ask them about their secondary professions and their plans to develop in the town.

He also started to share some of his views about the difficulty they would face of they go to the fae region and join the guild there. It was always hard for players of one species to develop guilds in a region of another species. These regions and the NPC cities will have a few advantage that the native species could properly use. Even a majority of the NPCs of the regions discriminate between the players based on the race of the player.

“How do you know about all of this difference between the regions? I have never heard of you being in other regions. Most players when they visit other races are kept track by the local guilds,” asked Agua.

“It is common among all the regions, dude. I have friends who went to other races regions. Even getting a reputation point is very hard. The common consensus among the various guilds is to let the player get to higher level so that it would be easier to gain reputation and use their hearthstones. Else, 90% of the ones who attempted have already been killed and sent back to their native region on respawn. The others didn’t even manage to get even 20 reputation points,” said Shadow.

“Still players could join the guilds established by the others with the same race as that of the region, but we both know that isn’t the best option either. Those players growth would be stunted compared to the others. Sooner or later, they will just become a burden. This game is expected to have a longer life than most others as it is being made by the makes of the somnium technology,” said Shadow. “You will definitely be pushed back in a guiild at that time.”

“What can I do?” said Agua sighing loudly. “Moreover, it is not sure that it wouldn’t improve in later stages. All I can do is change my race by resetting my account, but I will be looked down by others and the guild leaders also have insisted that the player in other races remain so that they have chance to move in different regions. They have become especially adamant after the auction house updated and they came to know of the use of the resources of other regions.”

“Of course, it is good to have someone we trust in other regions. I understand the reason for them to ask you to remain here,” said Shadow. “It is just that most such players are unable to get a decent harvest or promote even in such areas as they don’t have enough members. The other guilds would surely try to suppress your growth.”

“Isn’t that the biggest problem that I am facing now,” said Agua as he nodded his head while pouring another mug of ale into his mouth. “Can’t do anything though. Even if I move to other guilds, the ones who know me would suspect me to be a spy. Unless, I get something valuable for them, it is impossible. Getting something valuable in this game is very hard. It is hard to pass by and even getting to the coast or the marshlands is a headache. How do we get something that is of value?”

“There is another option. You can have a guild here that competes. You surely want to start a branch of the Divine Swords guild here, right?” asked Shadow getting to the important question at hand.

“Of course, but a name like Divine Swords, if heard here would beget action from those Raiders. They will suppress us much more. They have the numbers here,” said Agua. “Only a few from the guild actually chose other races to explore, but the rest all chose fae. So, to avoid any suppression, we were instructed to not use the name till more of our members join.”

“That is a reasonable assumption too, but you can also create a new guild under a different name,” said Shadow. There have been instances of sub-guilds being created by other guilds to tackle this scenario and also to maintain communication with other guilds favorably in his past life. The difficulty of the game and hurdles it caused kept the dynamics of the interactions between guilds everchanging.

“You kidding, right?” asked Agua in surprise almost spewing out the drink in his mouth. He was shocked as such an act would usually imply a certain members of the guild diverging from the guild. It is usually done when players are irreconcilable and there expect a certain amount of oppression from the guild which they split from.

“Don’t misunderstand me,” said Shadow. “You can have it as a sub-guild of the Divine Swords and don’t inform anyone. Or even better, create a guild in the game but the let the elders and the current shareholders have the shares of this guild. Then, they would have no issue in supporting your efforts silently,” suggested Shadow.

“That sounds like a reasonable suggestion, but it still wouldn’t be a good option. They know me and already have been monitoring me. They aren’t suppressing us right now because we don’t belong to a guild in the game and are independent players. They just don’t want bad press among the potential recruits,” said Agua.

“Well, that is the good part, right? They don’t want bad press among potential recruits. This is the main reason I am thinking of a guild. They are currently monopolizing a few areas and they are able to do so only because of the lack of decent competition. But it is not that the independent players don’t resent them. They are just tolerating as they couldn’t do anything. So, if we create a guild under the name of a person who is not famous and have him as the guild leader, we can avoid such effects. Just a small guild so that we can have the benefits provided by being in a guild,” suggested Balthazar.

“What is that going to do?” asked Agua confused.

“It will be under a different guys name. I will find someone, and you can just join. They have a lookout for you, but I am sure that we can get more people into the guild. I will get someone into the guild, and it won’t be under my name either,” said Shadow.

“You went to that trip with them. They would have someone tailing you too, by now.”

“I can’t be tracked by them,” said Shadow as he removed his clock effect to make his name visible to them and used his disguise skill to change his name. The others were surprised by it. Some have already heard of hiding their names and even that rare skills to modify one’s appearance existed, but this was different.

“You can change your name? Wont that break the rules of the game?” asked Agua as the others also nodded.

“It is temporary, but enough to fool others. Else, I wouldn’t have been able to join their scouting team at the marshlands. I have methods to keep myself secret,” said Shadow. “If I get someone to setup a guild and make noise that would get others to join would you help us. I promise that I will help you establish your guild if we manage to get decent amount now. Also, you can leave the new guild when the others from your guild join.”

“That is still very risky. I doubt that the others would not believe us,” said one of them. “Even if we create a guild together won’t the others in our guild just think we are creating a new guild and defecting.”

It was clear to Balthazar that these guys didn’t trust him and were expecting some explanation. They were already informed by their leader to be wary of him and that he can’t be completely trustworthy as they had a small conflict. Though Muramasa didn’t go into the details, he warned them, and Balthazar also expected that they would already be warned.

“Ah, the concerns of official paid guild members. I miss those days. Your problem is simple to solve. Just get me a few passes to the town and I will do the rest. Your small team will just join us later and not at the start. If join during the creation of the guild, you would be defectors but if you join later, even after a few hours after you have informed your guild leader and other elders most would just consider that you are just using us for now and your loyalty still remains,” suggested Shadow. “The others working alongside you at your guild office would even think you are spies in the guild.”

“We still need to inform the leader about it beforehand and based on what you told, I doubt you would let us have any important positions in the guild,” said one of them sneering. The guy believed that he had seen through the ruse of Shadow who had wanted to create a sub-guild using them. If they didn’t join at the start, they wouldn’t have any important position which would make it hard for them to influence guild members.

“I am willing to write a contract that states Agua to be made a vice-leader of the guild within a few days of his joining. Making him a vice-leader would raise suspicions,” said Shadow. “I can also have another one of you as vice-leaders if you don’t believe, but the guild leader of this new guild should be someone new whom no one in the game circles would know and should be just a nominal one. I can even make the guild leader sign the same. You would have a lot of influence on the new players and you can defect with them when your guild decides to put more effort in this region.”

“Ok. What do you want in return?”

“Huh?!”

“Come on? I doubt that you just gave us all these drinks to propose this,” said Agua. “You need something from this, right?”

“I am getting what I want. I am choosing the guild leader,” said Shadow. “It will allow me to influence the guild. I just need you to get a few passes to get some players and some more players to start up the guild.”

“That is well, but it is not practical. You started with something about getting independent players to help us, but all suggested was to have our guilds put in the effort. The Raiders will eliminate us out of the town and won’t let us develop,” said Agua.

“Yes, I got the best item for it,” said Shadow. “You know that there has been an issue with the marshlands right? The raiders didn’t accomplish their mission due to the poisonous toads. Even the players are having a lot of trouble due to them. I got the antidote for that.”

“That would work. At the very least, we can attract enough to temporarily join us in exploring those regions,” said Agua.

“Apart from that, we need to put in a few more things in our agenda. First, we make sure that it is known that all the members who created the guild have just made it for fun and are using to mutually gain profit without subjugation from the other guilds. So, we need to make the rules extremely light and provide the antidote for our members at a lower cost. A few more might be required, but we can discuss them later,” said Shadow.

“Yes, it is a good strategy and there is no point discussing details, if we don’t get the permission from the guild leader and the passes,” said Agua. “Anyway, you need to put out the antidote in the market or auction them. It would get popularity and if everything goes as expected, it would give confidence to our guild too for investing in this idea.”

“Cool, I don’t need much investment, except the passes and a few men to join us discreetly to create the guild. You guys will join later as we have talked before,” said Shadow.

“One last thing. The name for guild,” said Agua.

“Free Life?” asked Shadow. He honestly didn’t care about the name and told that name sarcastically, but unexpected Agua nodded and agreed to it. “It is a good option. Suits our agenda and it is best if the name suggests the same. I will go ahead and talk it out. It will require some talking in person with them and convincing,” said Agua as he downed his drink and got up along with the rest of his team and left the place. After a few minutes, Shadow also followed suit.

He needed a new disguise and a player to pose as a guild leader, but one who would be carefree and not be concerned of anything. Anyone, he gets from Rudra would be sooner or later traced back to the guild. Any player who had played professionally would be immediately identified by their habits.

Ideally, to get independent players to actually join them, he needed one who wouldn’t look like a traditional guild leader and would feel like one of them. He also required the person to be someone he trusted. It was a very difficult thing for him to find.

He went ahead to call to Rudra to inform him of his plans and have some guys ready to join him in the Five Elements Empire. He could deal with this later. He decided to go and put some effort in the forging services in the coastal guard. It was a good chance to increase his forging proficiency and earn money and experience for free.