End Online: Volume 5 (18 page)

“You players mus’ be new to the city of Sphinx,” the player says
in a gruff voice that makes me wonder if he actually was a bear in a previous
life.

Despite our surprise, we introduce ourselves. It turns out his
name is MasterLon, a player who specializes in hand-to-hand combat. He
enthusiastically pulls out a pair of blood-stained gauntlets to show us. After
I hastily turn down his request for a duel, he begins to introduce the city.

“This city was firs’ discovered abou’ six months ago. Since
then, not a whisper abou’ the place has lef’. How did you end up finding it?”

“One of the players from our other party over there heard rumors
about something being to the south. He wasn’t entirely sure what it was
though.” I look over at Mikhail’s party while speaking, and notice that one of
the local players has approached them as well.

“Tha’ no’ be a problem,” MasterLon unexpectedly lets out an
enormous laugher with no warning, causing me to edge away in my seat. “There is
another concern with you players here. We accep’ all new players to this city,
bu’ there be rules.”

“This whole area is an excellen’ hunting ground. The monsters
give a lo’ of experience and there is also a local auction house so we can sell
all the good loot to others. There are only several thousand players here so
there be plen’y of space for everyone. Wha’ we don’ wan’ is for every eager
player from Dalbe and the o’her two kingdoms coming down here. If you get wha’
I mean?”

I seem to have gotten confused about what he was saying halfway
through and now feel completely detached from the conversation, “Sorry, I’m a
little confused. What do you mean?”

“He means that he doesn’t want us telling anyone about this city
and land,” Mason says to me with a frown.

I understand why he is displeased and unwilling to keep a lid on
the information. Such a great story about a new city would be a massively
popular video. I look at Sir Laurence, who nods as if reading my mind and I
turn back to Mason.

“Mason, I’m sure you want to make a video on this city which we
normally would have no problem with. Then again, you made an extremely popular
video recently that we do have a major problem with. How about we forget about
the video which is already posted, and you forget about making a video of this
place?”

“Urgh, fine,” Mason reluctantly agrees after some thought.

“MasterLon,” Verde speaks up sternly, “I have no interest in
keeping your secret. However, I am not someone to spite several thousand people
for no reason. We will not expose your secret, but at the same time, we will
not help you keep it.”

“Tha’ is fine. No’ spreading it is all we ask. Also, to avoid
more of us coming up to you to repea’ this conversation, you should get at
least one tattoo. People who have one are recognized as keepers of the secret.”

Shortly after, he gives us directions and a description of what
the shops of many local tattoo artists look like. I ask him about the different
kingdom insignia on his right hand as well, which has an interesting
explanation.

In the center of Sphinx, there is a governor’s mansion where you
can follow a series of chain quests and acquire the right to become a part of
the city. This way, if a player dies, they aren’t transported all the way back
to the three kingdoms. Although Sphinx is a large city, it doesn’t classify as
its own kingdom and is more of a duchy ruled by the city’s governor.

There is also the news of an auction house within the city. I
eagerly get directions to it and head off immediately with Fen, leaving the
rest of the party to continue drinking. Under the evening sun, I notice that
Fen’s attire actually fits in with the local community. Many people are
scantily dressed due to the heat, many of the males completely topless,
revealing hardened muscle and suntanned skin.

The auction house looks extremely familiar, with a similar
design to the ones in the three kingdoms. It is a little more sparse and with
less staff than I am used to, but that is because there are only a fraction of
the players here compared to everywhere else.

Entering one of the rooms, Fen curiously inspects everything
before sitting down and staring at me as I put my items up for auction. Seven
days, minimum bid starting price. I place all of my currently available items
up for sale and a small list is created in front of me.

My inventory is full of equipment and nearly over the limit of
what my strength will permit, so I add a lot of low- to mid-tier weapons to the
list of items as well. None of these are noteworthy items, but since I’m
entering university in four months, I need every penny I can get.

This being my first time selling so many items at once, I worry
that perhaps it will oversaturate the market and they won’t sell very well. I
try to stagger the beginnings and ends of the auctions for the more common
items so as to sell them in separate batches.

By the time I return to the Desert Plume, the sun has set and
everyone is completely drunk. A few more local players have entered, but the
inn is still mostly empty. There are clearly enough people to shout and create
a rowdy atmosphere in the room though.

We end up renting three rooms between us and splitting up for
the night. Mason and Matrix to one room, Fen and I to a second, and, most
surprisingly, Verde and Sir Laurence to the third. I am shocked sober when I
see the two staggering up a set of stairs toward their room on the second
floor.

I lead Fen up to our room and am pleasantly welcomed by a bed
that doesn’t have an ounce of dust or sand in it. Without hesitation, I climb
in and close my eyes to sleep. In a semiconscious state, I am vaguely aware of
Fen sliding into bed and curling up against my chest. I place an arm over her,
feeling the tender skin on her back before pulling her closer as sleep
completely takes over.

***************************************************

Down in the common room, the morning sun shines in through an
opening in the wall I can only refer to as a window. Fen sits on a chair
unnaturally close to me, but all of our collective attention is on Verde and
Sir Laurence.

Verde is avoiding looking at Sir Laurence, while the knight
himself has bags under his eyes that show he didn’t get a wink of sleep. I
would have suspected illicit activity to have taken place all night if it
wasn’t for the fact that Verde appears to have slept well. They only got a room
with a single bed, same as Fen and I, so my interest is piqued.

“So, what happened?” Mason asks the very question I am thinking,
his eyebrows raised.

“I-I stood guard over my lady all night to ensure no misfortune
befell her.” The shining knight stammers through an obvious lie.

Verde looks at him and explains the whole situation with a
single sentence and a shrug, “I slept on the bed and he sat in the corner.”

I can’t help but laugh out loud as Prince Charming’s face turns
as red as a tomato.

Once the morning antics are done, we leave the inn and search
through the city for a tattoo artist and a bazaar to sell all of our junk
items. Our current total toward starting a guild is twelve thousand gold coins.
We need a total of twenty thousand to charter it.

We find a tattoo parlor first. The price for a single tattoo is
actually quite expensive, the cheapest being fifty gold coins. We brainstorm
several ideas and draw a few designs for what we could get.

My design is the one that everyone accepts. It is just the
silhouette of three people, a shorter female with long hair, a tall man and
another with a hood on. Those three people are walking forward, with a small
wolf at the front.

When the tattoo artist receives the design, he redraws it with
more tribal pattern worked around it and makes it look much more tattoo-like.
Mikhail’s party watches as we all get the same tattoo, and decide to get one of
their own design as well. They are all in the same guild after all.

We emerge from the shop at noon, everyone looking at the new
tattoo on their left shoulder. Unlike a real tattoo, there is no pain, redness,
 or bleeding. Our clothes cover the tattoos quite effectively, except for
Fen, Verde and Mason who currently have their shoulders exposed. Verde
deliberately changed to a sleeveless leather cuirass in order to show hers off.

“Hey, how about we just make this our guild symbol and save our
money?” I jokingly ask, but everyone seems to take it seriously.

“It would be difficult,” Mason ponders while counting something
with his fingers. “A guild is entitled to purchase land, set up a base, and has
numerous other benefits. If we give up on that and recruiting more players, we
can do it.”

Verde also has a concern with the formation of a guild, “We also
need a guild name.”

“We shall be known as Knights of Salvadore!”

“Nay, we be known as ‘he Fortuitous Com’atriots!”

Everyone gets heated up discussing our guild name. At this
point, I can’t tell them that I wasn’t being serious, but this bickering is
giving me a headache.

“All your name choices are horrible!” Verde calls out aghast.
“It needs to be something simple that relates to us. We have explored all over
and continue to move from one place to another. The Wanderers. There, that is a
good guild name.”

‘That’s actually a pretty good name,’
 I think to myself.

Everyone finds it difficult to refute, and before I know it, The
Wanderers has become our guild name. Another squabble breaks out over who is
the guild master, vice-guild master, and so on, but we end up agreeing on all
six of us being the senior guild members. If we get enough money and officially
form our guild, any new players will become junior guild members.

We explore in high spirits while keeping an eye out for a bazaar
to sell our items. I am still troubled over the fact that I was only joking
earlier and wonder what would happen if they found out.

The streets of Sphinx are all quite wide and have a hot wind
blowing through them. I place my hand on the sandstone wall of a nearby
building and feel the coarse material. An illusory heat haze hangs above the
ground that causes the air to ripple.

With only several thousand players residing within the city,
there are numerous areas completely devoid of them. In these residential
streets, the NPCs carry about their daily lives as they normally would: hanging
wet clothes to dry, applying some form of heat resistant clay to cracked
sections of the houses, bringing home shopping, and even children playing
joyfully on the street.

Doubling back several times and asking a few stray players for
directions, we eventually find a great big bazaar full of various players and
NPCs hawking their wares. Everyone splits up, and we enter the area as three
groups of two.

The bazaar is a large open square with NPCs who continually
sweep sand into the four corners. There are a few large stalls around, but the
bazaar mostly consists of fortified sandstone kiosks. One of the players I
spoke with earlier warned me about the sandstorms that sweep through the city
and surrounding area every week or so. Most structures are built quite sturdily
to withstand them.

I sell most of my junk items to an NPC who pays handsomely for
them. Just over twelve hundred gold coins for the lot. It is only after the
transaction that I realize exactly how many pieces of ‘Common’ and ‘Rare’ tier
equipment I have been carrying around.

Walking through the bazaar, I come across one particular kiosk
that gives me a feeling of nostalgia. The prices are slightly higher than
normal, but the weapons and armor are extremely similar to those you would see
in Swordbreak.

While looking over the weapons, a familiar voice greets me,
“Well, if it isn’t the famous Lost! What a coincidence meeting you out here.”

“What a coincidence indeed, you stalker!” I shout in surprise at
the man behind the counter. It is none other than Mouse. “What the hell are you
doing here?”

“I was here first, who are you calling a stalker?! I just
happened to be doing some travelling in search of new items and ended up here.”

“Just happened to end up here my arse! This place is so far out
of the way you can’t just happen to end up here!”

“Oh, so how did you get here?”

“Several things happened and I… happened to end up here…”

“Hah! That’s what I thought!” Mouse gloats triumphantly,
sticking his nose up in the air.

Mouse being in a place as remote as this is completely shocking,
but he does have some useful information he has collected from the local rumor
mill. Apparently, the nearby mountain range is home to a myriad of powerful
monsters. Most of the local players will go to the outskirts there or venture
into some caves at the base of the mountains to power level. As a result,
nearly every player in this area is levelled above 300. Some are even nearing
level 400.

The only downside to this desert, much to Mouse’s dismay, is the
limited crafting materials. This includes ores, herbs, and other useful
crafting items. There is the possibility they may exist in the mountains, but
no one can safely enter to find out.