Chapter 215: Meetings and Measures

Chapter 215: Meetings and Measures

Not long after the creation of the Snowflake Golem, the cheering and crowds settled down within the city of Kordas. Quinn made an effort to round up all of the major players present, including many of the Elite NPCs of the Kordas Kingdom, and had them slowly funneled into the meeting chamber of the Night Hunter’s Guild Hall.

Aegis was included in this group, along with his party and council members. Yumily came in with Yuki and Kaito, and Christoph and Artaphernes were present as well. In terms of NPCs, Savika was there with Celestian, Jael came with multiple elite NPCs from Kordas that Aegis didn’t recognize, and the leadership of Pakro’Vielle and the City of the White Tree had been brought along as well.

It took some time for everyone to gather inside the room and get settled into their chairs, mainly due to chatter amongst them as they continued to discuss the events of the invasion. Aegis watched Viella and Jael go deep in conversation, while Ulaipu and Celestian talked together off to the side, and Savika was sitting with Yuki and Yumily and chatting them up excitedly.

Meanwhile, beside Aegis, he had Rakkan and Darkshot talking about their PvP matches with their respective opponents. Darkshot was going on about how overpowered a mimick companion was. Lina on the other hand was happy simply sitting next to Aegis silently, holding his hand and keeping an eye on him. Eventually, the conversation between Darkshot and Rakkan made its way to Simon, and they turned to Pyri curiously.

“How’d you end up beating that guy?” Darkshot asked her suddenly, knocking her out of a daydream as she had zoned out from the nearby chatter and was absentmindedly staring up at the ceiling of the meeting room.

“Huh? Who?” Pyri looked down at him, somewhat caught off guard.

“You know, that psycho, Simon.” Darkshot shrugged.

“Oh. Him. Yeah...” She put her hand on her chin and rubbed it for a moment, her eyes moving up into the corner of their sockets as she avoided looking directly at Darkshot, whilst he and Rakkan looked at her eagerly and Lina turned to watch her somewhat anxiously. “I kicked him.” She eventually shrugged, lifting up her knee so that the others could see her foot, then wiggling it around.

“Really? You kicked him?” Darkshot asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Mhm. Basically. I used cinderbolts to block his attacks but he was pretty good at spell control, was hard to get through. So I just kicked him instead.” She added another shrug. “He got the best of me in the end, but luckily I got him low enough and Savika was able to finish him off.”

“So he was hard to deal with, even for you?” Lina asked with worry in her voice.

“Eh... he used some pretty cheap tactics... I wouldn’t say ‘hard to deal with’. The word I’d use is despicable.” Pyri replied.

“He wiped the floor with all of us...” Rakkan said with a dejected tone. In this time, she’d gotten the attention of Aegis as well as he turned in his chair to stair at her while she stood behind him in the meeting room. His eyes on her made her suddenly and very visibly anxious about the conversation.

“Well...” She avoided eyecontact with Aegis, “it’s just one of those old mouse and keyboard players, like me, with really high APM. I wouldn’t feel too bad about it. Even though he was playing a kid character, he was actually a really old guy.” Pyri explained, and saw a wince of disgust on Lina which Pyri nodded towards.

“Do you think you could teach us?” Aegis asked, and the others all began to nod along with this suggestion enthusiastically.

“Teach you? What? How to have high APM?” Pyri asked as she finally looked Aegis in the eyes, somewhat taken aback. He nodded in response to her question, causing her to let out a huff of air and shake her head at him. “The last time I showed off that I could do stuff like this...” She mumbled, her voice trailing off quietly so that they couldn’t hear her due to the loud chatter of the other players and NPCs nearby. Rather than finish her sentence though, a smile grew on her face as she glanced between Aegis and his friends and their eager expressions.

“Yup. I guess I can try. It’s not like studying a book though, it’s something you have to practice a lot. Human brains struggle with multitasking, so you have to utilize a lot of techniques to efficiently trick it into completing multiple tasks at once, by bundling them together in your mind.” Pyri explained.

“Wait, wait...” Darkshot suddenly began fumbling around in his inventory and pulled out a parchment. “I feel like I should be writing this all down...”. Seeing this, the others started to do the same put Pyri waved her hands at them to stop them.

“I think we should do this meeting stuff first.” She laughed awkwardly at their eager enthusiasm, stopping Aegis and Rakkan from also pulling out parchments from their inventory, and just as they looked back across the room towards the other end of the table, they saw Quinn standing up out of her chair and clearing her throat.

“Everyone.” She spoke with a voice amplification spell cast on her by Trexon who stood beside her, along with Sapphire, Herilon, Baffo and Tullan. All the chatter quickly died down within the room and all eyes turned to Quinn. “Thank you all for attending this meeting on such short notice. I’m sure many of you have other places you need to be right now, so I will try not to keep you long.” Quinn explained as everyone settled down into their seats and had their eyes on her.

“Firstly, I want to tell you all how proud I am of everyone. In the face of insurmountable odds, we were all able to come together and stand up for our island. I know it was hard, and I am still angry with myself that I wasn’t able to be there to help. But I am glad I had such reliable companions that were able to step up in my stead, and give it their all. If it wasn’t the efforts for many of you, we wouldn’t be standing here right now." She paused as there was a brief applause directed towards Yuki, Yumily, and Aegis' party.

"There’s a lot that needs to be done now, though. At the moment, the destroyed island stones are, believe it or not, mending themselves. Based on the speed at which they are mending and repairing, it appears they’ll be back to five fully functional island stones in about a week. The other cities and settlements however are not mending themselves. Many of the towns outside of Kordas and Rene suffered greatly. Some citizens were able to evacuate to the capital in time, but not all, as everything happened on such short notice.

Unfortunately, due to the loss of the Royalty here in Kordas, it’s become difficult as the leader of the top guild to co-ordinate any efforts with the NPCs to start rebuilding and repairing what has been lost. So, our first order of business will be to assign new leadership to the Kingdom of Kordas.” Quinn explained, taking a breath after these words to look specifically over the Elite NPCs that were present - mainly the many Kordas Elite Nobles that Aegis didn’t recognize.

“Of the many nobles here, a few of you are qualified to run this Kingdom in the place of the now lost royal family. I’m aware they are big shoes to fill, so if any of you feel like you would be up for the task, please step forward now.” Quinn spoke to them directly. The nobles all turned their heads and glanced between one another, but none rose their hand much to Quinn’s surprise. Seeing this, she anxiously looked at Jael for assistance, but he shrugged back at her.

“Being offered a chance to be the King, and none of them are taking it?” Christoph said with a tone of disbelief as he watched it unfold.

“Well, you see...” One of the nobles spoke up after clearing his throat. “We all have great respect for our former King of Kordas, Eirene bless his soul. We saw his love for the people, and it was unlike anything we’d witnessed before... It’s not something any of us could handle, even if on parchment we appear qualified.” He explained. Quinn watched as the other nobles nodded along in agreement with him, and let out a long sigh.

“Speaking of Mithral weapons...” Herilon cleared his throat, leaning into the conversation. Aegis looked at him with a raised eyebrow, only to see Sapphire coming up along beside him, followed by Kaef’aktos and Viella.

“I see you’ve managed to find Mithral and forge yourself a shield. Can I expect shortswords soon?” Kaef’aktos asked with an eager smile.

“Uhm...” Yumily cleared her throat, stepping forward with Kaito and Yuki. “My instruments, as well...” She asked shyly in her soft voice, barely able to hold eye contact with Aegis as he looked from her towards Kaito.

“That attack you used on Jealousy, it broke your Katana right?” Aegis asked him.

“Yes. I would be deeply indebted to you if you would be able to forge for me a sword strong enough to withstand that attack.” Kaito respectfully bowed towards Aegis.

“They have plenty of gold, so, they’ll be able to pay you for your work.” Yuki jumped into the conversation on their behalf as Savika and Celestian approached, suddenly huddling everyone together around Aegis off to the side of the room.

Aegis glanced between everyone and let out a long, drawn out sigh.

“We’ve got the mithral pickaxe now, shouldn’t be too bad...” Tullan shrugged.

“Yeah, I guess.” Aegis nodded at him. “Alright guys, It’s near the top of my list of priorities. I’ll be taking a flight with Leonard to Kiepalt, but after that, me and Tullan will get to crafting. Chax?” Aegis called him over as he was talking with Ruffily off to the side, and he quickly pushed his way through the crowds.

“What’s up?”

“Can you take requests from everyone here for mithral equipment? Based on what they’re asking, you can set the price for the crafts. Keep in mind to give discounts for friends and players who helped in defending Kalmoore.” Aegis asked him, and he nodded back before turning to the crowd.

“Alright, everyone form a line, I’ll be taking requests on Aegis’ behalf for mithral equipment.” Chax called out, and the group quickly began pushing around and shuffling into a line with Herilon at the front, while Aegis backed away with Tullan and his party.

“You mind if I take the eternal flame back? I’d like to have one at the forge of Rene.” Aegis asked Tullan as the two began walking side by side out of the meeting hall, his party in tow.

“Aye, no trouble. I'll have Quinn and the others hunt down the cores and giant heart so I can forge another for the guild hall. Shouldn't be too tough, we got a friendly dragon now.”

“Shouldn’t be too hard to get that stuff, now that we’re not being hunted by a bunch of evil players.” Aegis replied.

“Yep, yep.” Tullan nodded.

“Speaking of those bad guys, where are they now?” Darkshot asked curiously.

“All locked up in the Kordas prison, serving time fer their crimes. Once they’re out, Quinn’s plannin' on banishin' them from Kordas.” Tullan explained.

“Good.” Rakkan replied.

“Is it possible to talk with them while they’re locked up?” Aegis asked.

“Aye, it is. Why?” Tullan looked at him with a raised eyebrow.

“I have a few questions I want to ask them.” Aegis replied.

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Pyri asked curiously.

“Yeah, it’s nothing serious. I’ll mute the stream for it.” Aegis shrugged back

“I also would like to...” Lina added timidly.

“Alright. I can take yeh to them before we head to the Airship. Follow me. I doubt they’re gonna be happy teh see yah though.” Tullan chuckled to himself as he led the way out of the Night Hunter’s guild hall.