Chapter 59 - Lychester Conflict

Arthur quickly finished his dinner and made his way back to his room. When he rejoined the voice call he found that Holly and Marie were still in the middle of a game, so he muted and just watched videos for a few minutes. Eventually Acai and Quinn had also returned, and the girls finished their game, so they went back to playing together.

Ending on a streak of five consecutive wins, the group decided to end the gaming session there. It was almost midnight at this point, and Arthur was ready to pass out, so he finished up his daily routine and went to bed.

The next morning Arthur woke up a couple hours later than usual, by the time he made his way down stairs, his sister and father had already gone to work. He prepared himself breakfast and performed his morning routine before turning on his computer and checking his social media accounts.

He then checked to see if anybody else was online, to which he found Holly and Maria currently in a game that had been going on for twenty-three minutes already. When he checked their playtime, he found that they hadn't actually stopped playing last night. He sent Maria a warning to get sleep before the session, as she would suffer if she tried to log in while sleep deprived, and then left to tend to his plants and work out. When he returned to his computer an hour later, both of them were already offline.

Later that day, he was driven back to the facility, where he met Acai and a tired-looking Maria who was yawning while hanging out near the door.

"Get any sleep?" Arthur jokingly asked, knowing that she would have gotten four hours at best. To which Maria just shook her head in response. 

The morning briefing didn't take too long, the main point spoken about was that everyone should work towards leaving the beginner village by the end of today due to the second wave of players scheduled to join next week.  They all eventually went into the capsule room and logged in.

After loading into the game world, Merlin found himself on the street outside of the mercenaries guild. He saw a few flashes of light appear in the surrounding areas as fellow players began logging into the world.  At this point it was pretty dark out, and the streets were now illuminated by the various streetlamps lining the roads.

Making sure to stay within the light due to his own personal issues, yet also making sure not to stand out, he made his way to Lychester's Provisions with his hood pulled up.

When he arrived near the store, he noticed a small group near the entrance of the building already, as well as various unaffiliated players hovering around the perimeter trying to see the action. Scanning the area gave Merlin the location of Snowbunny and Typhoeus, who were standing a little bit away from the action and trying to blend in, as well as LordKyle's grunts who were blocking the way into the store.

"How dare you overprice your useless goods, you scammer!" The loud screaming match had begun with LordKyle throwing accusations of inflated prices around, as well as labelling the creep a scammer.

This conflict ultimately solved a few issues Merlin had, the most important being that Kyle would eventually be severely punished for his actions. But there was also that Merlin wanted to harass Arwell Lychester himself, swearing at him would have been satisfying, but it would also come with some severe punishments. This was the safest way he could do so, by letting someone else take the fall, and attacking him indirectly by instigating them from behind the scenes.

"I'll turn you in to the merchants association." There was more yelling, and plenty of profanities thrown around. "You'll never sell an item ever again."

Merlin noticed a handful of guards slipping into the crowd, it seemed like they heard the yelling, or were curious about the mass group hovering around a store.

Loud thuds and a few clanging sounds echoed from within the store, and it was at this point that the guards marched in, pushing the groupies playing as guard dogs aside with ease before kicking their way through the door.

"Who the hell are yo--" LordKyle's voice had trailed off and transformed into a pained scream as he was attacked by the guards.

"Get this poor scum out of my store." Lychester's voice was raspier than usual, and from what Merlin could barely see through the building's window and a shelf of various cluttered junk was that LordKyle had been knocked to the ground and was now being stomped on.

"Take this you poor filth." Lychester screamed in glee as he stomped on Kyle's back. "Rot in prison!"

Eventually the two guards cuffed and dragged him out of the store, bringing him to the Orchomenus barracks to be imprisoned. With the spectacle ending faster than it started, the larger groups that were hovering around just to see some action had suddenly dispersed .

Walking past Kyle's followers without being recognised, Merlin stepped into the store. There he saw the fat man, but his head was bright red and several veins looked to be on the verge of bursting. A small trace of blood could be seen on the corner of his mouth, it seemed Kyle had done the most stupid thing imaginable, he attacked an NPC in a town.

This was better for Merlin, as it wouldn't take much convincing for the villagers to think Kyle had killed a man or two. He'd probably be released by next session, so he had plenty of time to plan the next phase.

"What can I get you?" Arwell spoke out, not seeming happy about Merlin appearing before him.

"Hey there, could I buy two flasks of lantern oil please?"

"That'll be two silver pieces." He spoke in a straight-forward, yet somewhat rude tone, but the next part was spoken under his breath, just loud enough for Merlin to hear. "Unless you've got an issue with that?"

Merlin finished off the purchase while ignoring Lychester's further remarks about his commoner status. This purchase left him at twenty-eight silver pieces and six copper.

He waved goodbye and left the store, making sure his hood was used to hide his face. When he left the store, he noticed that within the few minutes he was inside, the crowd had completely dispersed, not even Typhoeus and Snowbunny lingered.

He made his way back over to the mercenary guild, entering once more. The eyes that fell on him were much softer than usual, more filled with suspicion than hatred. Merlin didn't understand the change until he realised that his hood was still on, and the second he removed his hood, everything returned to normal.

"Welcome back." The bartender greeted Merlin once more, "You leave for a few minutes and an issue occurs in town where you show up, would that happen to be a coincidence?"

"I just went to buy a couple things, that was happening long before I got there." Merlin defended himself, although the bartender was spot on. His intuition was incredibly sharp, scarily so. "Not everything bad that happens in the world is my fault."

Although technically the truth, it wasn't like he wasn't currently cursed with both the chance he'd be attacked by a murderous ghost-like creature during the night, and from what he understood from the quest, the chance to summon a multitude of magical, and possibly catastrophic, phenomenon wherever he went.

"So, how can I help you?" The bartender shrugged off Merlin's words and went back to his routine duty.

"The priestess pointed me in the direction of a noble household. There is a rumour that someone has been living with this curse for several years now, they might have ideas for the fix for my curse." Merlin flashed his purple arm. The movement of the blight had been completely frozen, so it refused to grow further. "I'm looking for the residence of the Redmond house."

"Alright, I can point you in the direction." The bartender nodded as he spoke.

"Could I get any rumours alongside this request?" Merlin abruptly added in. He wanted to get past the gate and have a conversation with the guy, it was important that he knew who he was meeting, or at least something about him.

"Well, he's in a moderately-sized mansion built near the market area, it's hard to miss." The bartender explained, "As for rumour, we know he spends roughly four gold pieces on lantern oil on a weekly basis. It has been causing issues with the guards being unable to acquire enough fuel for the town street lights."

"There are also rumours that he no longer leaves his home, that he sleeps during the day and is only active at night. But even when he is active, he never leaves the confines of his home. Instead, all his interactions with the outside world are through his servants, they are often seen about town performing various tasks, they act as his eyes, ears and hands in Orchomenus." The bartender continued, "There are rumours that a servant was thrown out of the house and almost executed for merely turning a lamp off. She fled the town with her child, and we haven't heard from her since."