"I just hope that you wouldn't make it public anytime soon," requested Balthazar.
"That is obvious, kid," said Leon this time. He was sitting behind Balthazar all the time listening what he had to say. "Irrespective of whether it works or doesn't none of the stuff which is being tried out here would get out to public knowledge."
"We need to inform elders about this idea if we want more resources," said Elias. "Without that there is no point in having this discussion."
"I just meant that we don't divulge this even to families and organization which are working with us," said Balthazar.
"That would be hard. Once, we suggest this to the elders at the very least, members of the Price family who are with us, would get know about the idea," said Leon. He knew the structure and organization of the family quite well and considered keeping this a secret to be a futile hope.
"OK. But we can request them to keep it under wraps, right?" asked Balthazar.
"Yes. They wouldn't allow others to know either. You don't need to worry about that," answered Leon.
"Yeah. They wouldn't try it out themselves first either. They would wait to see if we have any success with it before they ever think about implementing it," added Elias. "Furthermore, we might have a problem with it ourselves too. For this, we need someone to agree for a test run. Most of the elders don't like to try it themselves. We need someone to agree for this, if we ever want to get it done properly."
"I will see if I can contact someone about it, but it would be hard. I would see if Robert or Winston can help," said Balthazar.
"Yeah. I was already thinking about contacting Richard for the same," said Elias. "Let us see what can be done. Anything else?"
"No, this is all I wanted to talk to you about. I will take my leave," said Balthazar as he made his way out of the virtual room.
He put in a mail to Robert regarding it. He just mentioned to him in the mail that he had talked to Elias and had a proposal that would help to create a real-fight based scenario, but they would require some assistance from him and asked Richard to discuss it with him.
He immediately logged in to the game and made his way towards the fort from the White Heart City. By the time, he logged back in, it was already an hour. He needed to get to the fort as soon as possible. He immediately contacted Rudra and came to find out that there were other guilds including Foedus Rex have managed to enter the city. But Crimson realm members also made another expedition managing to get increase their numbers in the city to about 500 players.
Luckily, the players who entered from other guilds were very low in number. Even the members of Foedus Rex who entered the city numbered less than 10 and they managed to do that due to the use of dynamites they bought. Knowing this, Balthazar told Rudra to stop the sale of dynamites for some time. He told that they would probably need quite a bit for this quest, and it is best to put a stop to it.
Lizzie had long since stopped the sale of dynamites since she realized that Sirius Imperials manged to get into the city due to their use. They left management of the shop to her and currently it was only selling armaments and the spear design made by Balthazar. She already put in a post on the forum that due to their need of dynamites in a quest, they weren't currently selling any for a period of time and would resume later.
Though few criticized it and made fun of the guild for not selling one of their hottest products, it was still considered a valid reason and they didn't need to worry about their reputation. In fact, there were other guilds who already managed to reach the cities due to use of the armaments and dynamites sold by their shop. None of them sold the wares that they managed to procure till now and hence, the Crimson Realm guild still had better reputation right now. Even the well-known super guilds of gaming industry weren't in a better state than them currently.
The members of the other guilds who managed to reach the city were also small in number compared to them. Most players who managed to register the city were trying to help more players of their guilds to register at the city by finishing their quest and hardly had any time to scout for other quests around the city. This was the advantage of them finishing first.
By the time, Balthazar reached the fort, there were close to 50 players around the fort. They have already finished transporting the armaments they found and were scouting around the fort in the forest. They were hunting the animals around the forest. The ones that would be found at this stage would be similar to the animals found in real-life.
As the aim of the game was to hone the skills of men and teach them to survive in exigent situations, they monsters would have a lot of characteristics of those found in real-life. The also made sure that these animals were low to moderate danger varieties, so that they could easily learn to hunt them. As most players would be novices, the game designers created the monsters so that it provided a slow learning curve and wouldn't put off the players. Even Grypa which was the species of Anubis, Balthazar's pet was appraised a high difficulty species by the game due to its speed and wouldn't be seen in the game anytime soon.
During his travel to the fort through the forest, he was informed of all the developments and the weapons and gold they earned by Lizzie and Rudra. He immediately went to the spectre after he reached the fort and accepted to fulfil its request.
Quest Completed: [Clear out the Silvannus Fort] (Difficulty: Hard)
Description: Kill all the goblins and trolls in the Silvannus Fort and meet up with Rozarius in the fort.
Progress: Successfully clear the fort of the goblins and trolls.
Reward: Experience +2000. Revealed the path to the shrine in the Silvannus' Fort.
The sudden experience again put him up another level. He was now at level 14 whereas most of his companions were still at level 12. He was happy about it as he had to collect more experience than the other players since he put on the mask of shadows, but he knew that this wouldn't persist long. Once, he took the unique weapon, his level would be reduced again. Luckily, even if his level reduced, there wouldn't be much change in attributes and he probably would get better skills.
Rozarius, the spectre quickly led him to centre of the semi-circular pathway. It passed through the ground at the midpoint of the pathway and a few seconds later, a bunch of sounds were being heard from deep within the mountain. The sounds were similar to those of a bunch levers being turned when suddenly a portion of the wall about 8 feet long and 10 feet wide broke off and slid back into the mountain revealing a long path. The path started to shake as it slowly began to move down forming steps that led into the depths of the hill.
As the steps were still forming Rozarius suddenly popped up through the floor. "I have done my part of the job. Now, I need you to adhere to your part of the bargain and take an oath on the heavens that you would do as I requested," said Rozarius.
"System Notification: You need to inform the royalty of the White Heart city about the shrine or destroy the fort after you finish exploring it. Else, you would lose 10 levels for breaking the heavenly oath."
At the same time, his character Shadow moved all on its own and he lost control as he swore with one hand pointing to heavens and the other hand on his heart. "I take the heavenly oath that I would inform the White Heart kingdom of the shrine or destroy the fort after my visit of the shrine," he said looking above him. There were a bunch of thunder and lightning in the sky as if the heavens were responding to his oath after which he regained control.
"I hoped it wasn't one of these," thought Balthazar. He had already heard about heavenly oaths in his previous life being asked by an NPC. These were ways to make sure that the players follow through the bargain with the NPC and doesn't renege on his deal. Else, it would break the structure of the game. Though there are ways that players managed to find to break the heavenly oath without following through, these methods are extremely costly.
Though he mainly came to the fort for the unique equipment, a part of him also wished to occupy the fort and use it as a base. They didn't yet manage to get enough reputation to find a guild headquarters and he also thought that the fort would be a suitable place to establish one.
"Are you all right in the head?" asked Merlin. "You seemed to be a bit too involved in the game," he continued as he wondered if the guy was insane. Though Balthazar display good instincts, tactics and was already known to be a real-life expert, he heard that some of these experts tend not to be mentally sane and began to fear if the player Shadow was one of those. Even the others were looking at him a bit oddly as if they were sceptical of his mental health
"I am not crazy. It was out of my control and my character did it automatically like some kind of cut-scene," replied Shadow giving him an angry look. He immediately took a snapshot of the notification and showed it to Rudra and Merlin.
"Wow. There go all our plans. We can't expect him to not follow through the options now," said Rudra.
"Let us just, inform that the members that this is a quest that would enable us to get rights over the fort and that we failed after we finish exploring the shrine. We don't need to put out this information," said Merlin.
"Fine. Moreover, we aren't even sure if we would be able to use it effectively. Once, we get enough to create a guild headquarters in the city, this would be wasted," said Rudra as he stepped on to the steps leading downward ready to explore the new area. As soon as he stepped on to the stairs, Rozarius started to speak again.
"The Shrine will test you before it allows to get the power left behind. I shall warn you again that failure to complete the test will lead to loss of life. I hope that if you are successful, you would use the power wisely," said Rozarius and then moved to the side waving his hands towards the staircase indicating them to go forward.
"That is what we shall do then. Let us talk about what we shall do about exploring the shrine. This seems quite similar to the Cave of Wargs quest that I did," said Balthazar. Though it wasn't true, the others didn't know of the details so he could use it to command them appropriately.
"I think the strongest of each class would better make the first trip. There might be situations where different skills belonging to different occupations would be useful. From the second attempt onwards, we can plan based on our previous experience," suggested Shadow.
"Yes, it is best we do it that way. There seem to be no restrictions that are apparent. It is best if we are able to gather most information with the first scouting group," said Tetsujin.
They discussed among themselves and decided the first group of twelve people that were to attempt the first scouting of the core region. The group consisted of Shadow, Merlin, Rudra, Tetsujin, Quiet Fire, Slaine, Blinding White, Rick, Tang and Spice, Perrenial Light, Little White Feet and Lizzie. Due to lack of a summoner, they decided to have two healers, Lizzie and Little White Feet. Lizzie used the ID, Holy Radiance for her character.
Duck 'n' Roll took charge of guarding the fort in this time. There were quite a few players from the guild already exploring the forest around the fort who would serve as lookouts. Apart from that he had a few sit down at the entrance to inner fort guarding the area. Rudra had also had the secret path which they used to enter fort closed during the time when Shadow was logged out. Thus, the gate was the only way currently to enter the fort for any other players not in the team.
They also already called for the other players than entered the city to temporarily explore the forest near to fort, so that they would have quick reinforcements in case some guild tried anything as they knew that it wouldn't take long for the other guilds to get players into city and try to stop them from seizing the fort.
Most guilds who reached the White Heart City were already concerned about the Crimson Realm guild as they were the first to reach the city. They already had made a decent amount of gold from the shop in the Blackrock Town and were afraid that with occupation of a fort, they would become very strong force in the White Heart City.
So, Roll considered it best, if they had as many players close the fort as possible. Moreover, the fort was in a forest allowing them to explore and hunt monsters while being close to it and wasn't detrimental for the growth of the players.