Munching on a small pastry bought from a food stall as I passed through the merchant district, the frequency at which I run into Newborn players increases steadily the closer I get to the Truth District, but it's still perishingly low compared to the clusterfuck that is Taladi's Waystation right about now. I can already see the spam of 'why are all the monsters being camped by like 200 people' and 'I can't leave the chapel, theres too many people' posts on social media and the official forums now.

Most of them will give up before the day is out and stop playing altogether.

Comparatively, I'd say Meteo City and The Town of Forgiveness have the highest player retention rate, but it's still death by degrees for the game as whole. Half of 400,000 players is still more lost than 10% of the maybe 40-60000 that are in both starting zones combined, after all.

Some of them ask me for directions, which I'm happy to give, and I refuse several offers to party up with groups as I go. I'm still a little preoccupied with my own concerns, and these fresh out the Cathedral noobs aren't of much use to me just yet.

The Pioneer's Alliance, once reaching the street, proves hard to approach thanks to a large collective of Newborn jostling against each other trying to get in the front door. Right. Forgot this happened. Honestly feels like the majority of the local players are loitering around here, and the queue stretches back up the hill and out of sight, presumably leading all the way to the Cathedral.

Fortunately, I'm not here to join the Alliance, but to deliver an order for Henna.

Squeezing around the gaggle of noobs, I duck into an alleyway on the opposite side of the street and make my way around to the back of the Alliance building, home a fairly open training yard. At the back door, sitting amongst a pile of crates, barrels and bundles, an elderly Kon NPC sits smoking a stubby clay pipe. Pretty sure he's the Hedge Mage Mentor NPC, but it doesn't really make a difference who it is so long as they have the key for the back door. I don't know his name or anything like that.

"Greetings, sir. I've got a delivery of materials from Henna to give to the Branch Leader," I inform him politely.

The Kon sucks a few more times on his pipe, staring hard at me, "You got an invoice?"

I shake my head, "Didn't give me one, but I have the crate right here with her Craftsman's Mark branded on."

Craftsmen and women with a certain amount of Fame can leave a signature on their work which can't be easily replicated by would-be forgers. If Henna puts her Mark on a product, you can be almost guaranteed that it's her work.

He nods in understanding, "Good enough for me, boy. Go on in, door's unlocked. You want the stairs on the right, his office is the first door you see."

Thanking him, I follow his directions without delay, the clamour of the newborn a shallow echo through the wooden walls separating the staff area from the gathering hall.

"Goodbye to being safe in the city," I grumble under my breath, rapping my knuckles on the sturdy door.

"Enter!" Comes the responding call, thick with pompous arrogance.

Rolling my eyes, I enter the office and am almost taken aback by the contrast of the plain, barren hallway with the ostentatious office. Richly carpeted with blue fabric and a reddish-brown scaly pelt, Geronil sits in a plush, high-backed chair behind a masterfully crafted wooden desk atop which sits several stacks of parchment, a golden calligraphist's pen with accompanying inkwell carved from a blue-tinted jewel. As if hating the very notion of empty space, the walls are packed with as many monster trophies and gaudy art pieces as could possibly be fit. The entire room is an affront to good taste and a shining altar to the thin, suited man's towering ego. I sincerely doubt that even a single piece was acquired by him legitimately or personally.

Adjusting his ascot tie, Geronil fixes me with a disdainful gaze that lingers and intensifies with disgust upon noticing the Citizenship Pin on my breast. Not bothering to hide his distaste, he renews eye contact, "State your business...Citizen."

Trying my best to keep a straight face at his childish racial bias, I remove the heavy crate of metal parts from my inventory and place it on the floor, crushing the carpet's fabrics beneath it and eliciting an annoyed twitch from Geronil, "Delivery and payment collection on the behalf of the Proprietor of Stone Arsenal."

His lips draw a thin line, "Very well. Leave the goods in the hall, and I shall write up a receipt. You may then collect your payment from the front desk."

"Understood," I comply without commenting on the disrespect he's showing me as I'm but a simple Newborn errand boy starting to make his way in the world at the moment, and I'm not about to get into a brawl with a level 15 Elite Boss over racial politics within seconds of meeting him. He'll get his comeuppance soon enough, no need to be impatient.

---

Geronil

When the Silva errand boy finally leaves, Geronil places his pen back into the lazubric inkwell, and place his fingers together in a steeple resting upon his desk. Still irritated, he looks at the soot-stained, suspiciously crate shaped indentation in his violet hornfleece carpet, and feels a boiling rage rise from within.

Gritting his teeth, he stands up sharply, growling. Fixing the door to his office with a glare, he takes a deep breath and shouts, "Klint! GET IN HERE NOW!"

A hurried set of footsteps leaves the adjacent office and brings a muscle-bound Firm man into Geronil's office, the bald man clearly nervous at the sudden summons, "Y-yes, Branch Leader?"

The Branch Leader observes Klint's obvious fear, and feels some of his frustrations melt away, "I wish to acquire something...exotic."

Klint blinks, furtively glancing at the accumulated trophies, a single shaking hand scratches at the back of his neck, "Sir?"

Geronil grins sadistically, "I want a Silva's Crystal Heart. It just so happens that a suitable source has just left the building..."

---

 

Closing the back door behind me, I dust off my hands and start to move on my way.

 

There it is. The extra detail about my Crystal Heart being stolen is an unexpected detail, though.

Thankfully, even with the influence Geronil wields in Meteo City, he can't afford to make a scene and risk exposing his dirty dealings. Therefore, I'll only have to deal with the odd thug, all of which scale with my level until the tenth encounter. After which, they increase in difficulty independently of my level until I put an end to Geronil or they kill me.

So long as I keep my time in the city to a minimum and stay in highly trafficked areas, I can keep the odds of running into his flunkies to a minimum.

"Kid, a word, if you will," A grave voice breaks me out of my inner monologue.

It's the elderly Kon gentleman, looking at me with a mixture of pity and resignation, "Don't make any detours. Get back to Henna using the main streets and avoid the alleyways."

I pause, "What do you mean?"

The Kon sighs, "Folks like us..." He takes a drag on his pipe, "tend to end up missing, of late. Take this with you, give it to the girl."

He tosses me a small brass pin, shaped like a fang.

 

 

Inspecting the pin curiously, I place it in my inventory, "Alright then. Take care, sir."

Quickly, I move around the side of the building, and back onto the bustling street.

---

 

The walk back to Stone Arsenal is uneventful, if tense. Sticking to the more populated thoroughfares is still less risky on the whole, but the added travel time still gives the random encounter more chances to occur. The difference between hitting only on all threes and above for 4 rolls, against twenty rolls on all sixes. Neither's great odds.

Henna is absent from the forge, but the door to the shop itself is wide open with a small piece of brickwork serving as a doorstop. A Panoplast player with fox ears to the side of the door admires his new bronze dagger and the way the mid-afternoon sun glints off the polished metal.

"Controls are dog-shit, but the lighting engine is impressive," he mutters, almost dropping the blade as he fumbles with the belt sheath.

I shrug, as I pass him by, fishing Henna's Payment and the Fang Pin out of my inventory. From the looks of it, she's explaining what metals Novices are able to mine up locally to a pair of Newborn Kon players. I don't need the refresher, so I tune their conversation out and wander around the shop, inwardly critiquing the quality of the displays to pass the time.

Even without the addition of a Mark, it's pretty easy to see which pieces were made by Henna, which are being resold from independent suppliers like players and which are made by her father. It's a sliding scale of quality from her father, to Henna, to the rest of this random crap.

I don't begrudge her the poor standard of craftsmanship though. As a 1-Star Merchant in a starting zone, even if she carried better equipment, nobody would buy it. There's also a Platinum-difficulty quest chain after the Main Questline resolves to help her past a creative slump which allows her to promote herself, but she was recruited by Rambling Rose and moved to one of their Guild's private properties elsewhere, so I don't know what becomes of her in the end. It was way too expensive for a lowly schmuck like me to consider attempting, and I didn't meet the affinity requirement to start it even then.

Still, with the spiky, flaming hoops Rambling Rose had to jump through to recruit her, and her importance to the story of Meteo City, the payoff can't have been insignificant. It's on the to-do list at least.

Eventually, the Newborn leave and Henna acknowledges my presence, "Sorry for the wait. Take it you've been to the Alliance?"

"Yes. I have the receipt and fee here," I plod over and place Henna's Payment on the table, along with my own.

Henna cracks a tiny, short-lived smile, "Good work. You've been a great help, so I'd be happy to give you a discount and some pointers on your smithing."

 

 

 

Only sparing a quick glance at the Title, I open my other hand and present the Fang Pin, "An old Kon asked me to pass this along on the way back."

Henna's expression softens a little, before becoming flintier than ever, "So that's how it is? Keep it."

I frown, "What's this about?"

Henna harrumphs, arms crossed, "It means the old traitor's given up. And he wants me to do what he's too chickenshit for in his place."

She leans forward a little, her voice a little petulant, "Well I ain't gonna. So, keep it."

"I can't accept something I don't know the significance of," I shake my head, "But I'm willing to listen to your story, if you're willing."

The blacksmith twists on the spot, scratching the back of her head abashedly, paying no mind to the soot stains on her hand, "Alright. Suppose I'm being a little unfair."

Gingerly taking the Pin from my hand she stares at it so intently I fear she'll go cross-eyed.

 

 

After a minute spent collecting her thoughts, Henna moves around the counter and locks the door to the shop, leaning against it.

"This smithy...it ain't mine. Not really," She begins, glancing around the shop, "It's me dad's. He built the place up on his own, and even after inheriting it from him, it never felt like it stopped being his."

Henna waggles the pin at me, "See, this pin here is one of his oldest works. A Dire Wolf fang, dunked in molten brass and left to cool. Amateur work by an amateur. He gave it to a friend of his - that Kon you met - named Lamnon. To hear him tell it, they were inseparable when they were young, and they promised that one day, they'd be heroes."

The more she talks, the less it feels like she's talking to me, and the more it's like she's trying to sort through her own emotions on the subject.

"Then one day, I hear 'em arguing downstairs. Dad were stood right here, where I am. Dad had caught wind of something fishy going on in the city - folks just disappearing in broad daylight. They'd go down a sidestreet, and not come out the other end - things like that," She continues, toying with the pin absently.

"Lamnon was telling Dad to drop it, he's a smith, not a hero. He weren't havin' that, and called him a coward for ignoring the problem. It went back and forth awhile, 'fore Lamnon decides he's had enough and tries to leave. He lowers his voice all threatening like, and tells Dad that he'll regret it, shoves the pin in his hand and stomps out the door."

My brow furrows, starting to see where this story is going.

"Not long after, Dad goes off to the gate to meet up with a metal merchant bringing in a new shipment. And he don't show up. Ever again," Henna spits venomously, clenching her fist around the pin tightly enough that I see a trickle of blood start to drip out.

Slamming the bloody fist against the doorframe, a blanket of dust falls from the ceiling on the trembling smith, "That traitor had info on what was happening. But he wouldn't talk, said he'd take care of it himself. That was fifteen. Fucking. Years. Ago. All the while, people keep vanishin'."

Henna exhales shakily, opening her bloody fist and pulling the fang out of her palm with a wince, then throws the still bloody trinket to me.

"I ain't a hero, neither were my Dad. You could be, if it strikes your fancy," Henna concludes, calming down a bit as she nurses the puncture wound, "Hells, I'll even help out if it means the bastards pay for it."

Seems to me that Henna's father got a little too nosy for Geronil's comfort and had him discretely removed. Rambling Rose never got this backstory - or they cut it out of the movie - so it's news to me, but it doesn't really change much in the grand scheme of things. Interesting all the same.

"Sure, I'll look into it," I nod, "You should get that washed and bandaged first though. And I still wish to buy those schematics I mentioned earlier, there's something else I need to look into urgently first and I want to be properly equipped."

She shakes her head, "Keep your money. You can have them."