Pity Prizes

Roughly twenty minutes after we came to an agreement on familiars our three groups divided up and went their separate ways. There were currently four other clans in the territory besides us and Thirteenth planned to take the lead and responsibility for this endeavor so two of the new dragons were sent back with Little Thirteen while an enlarged and rusty red Inkvine stuck with Donna.

Between them they would deal with the three larger clans and the last clan was left for me to intimidate even though I did not want to actually be a part of the bullying.

Apparently, they felt it necessary for me to take some responsibility by taking part instead of just supplying the materials. Personally I would have preferred to just take a back seat and watch everyone else take the heat for what was their plan but they thought it would leave the other clans open to buying my support as well.

Since we were 'old friends' they wanted the other clans to believe it would be pointless to resist our alliance by trying to buy protection from me. Even though this cut off several potential revenue streams for Tragedy's Travelers and myself, it would still paint a clear picture. Joining and submitting were the only profitable routes available.

Of course we were sure to make enemies by doing this but neither Little Thirteen or Donna seemed to be worried about this. Since Tragedy's Travelers was already developing the reputation of powerful upstarts, I might as well go with the flow. Which was how I found myself parked on the imperial corruption carrier at the back of a clan called Dungeon Skulkers.

Skulkers were the only clan in the territory that did not have a place in the top ten and was made my responsibility because not even Donna thought they were a big enough threat to warrant her or Thirteen's velvet glove tactics. So, they sent an iron fist to come tell them how to play while hoping they refused to play by our rules.

If I said I did not hope to experience an actual PVP clash without actually relying on cordyceps, I would be lying. Ever since I saw how easily the bygones were swept up it made me wonder at the actual firepower of these big clans. Even though these clans all had higher combat ratings that mine it seemed like it was literally only due to their numbers.

When I showed up here the clan made a big to-do about rushing around and preparing to defend themselves and even sent out a large part of twenty people to 'meet' me. I simply told them that I wanted to meet with their leaders and talk about the raid. However, that was almost five minutes ago and the only thing I had seen so far was defensive preparations around the camp.

By the time a full five minutes had passed without the camp's leaders coming forth, I was already pretty sure these guys planned to resist even though I was sure they already knew what would be in store for them. Even if I did not unleash the zombie plague on them I had only seen about a dozen people so far in elite level gear that looked like it could be epic in grade.

Quite a few of the people here, though, wore interesting titles. Unlike mine that pertained to things like catching and killing monsters or becoming a guardian spirit, some of these people were titles related to this game's version of the adventurer's guild and profession titles. Almost every other person I looked at, even in the greeter group, had some kind of title related to the crafting of potions or poisons, daggers or axes, even a friggin' wheelwright.

All of their people were fairly high in level as well, hovering around the mid sixties despite only having recently arrived here. Even the sword king candidate had been just under level sixty when we met and was now only sixty-three. Then again, all of their raid parties had the full thirty slots filled while my team had less than half of that in players.

Casting a glance at the two-row party of defenders pretending to be greeters, I ask the highest leveled person with the name Convoluted Cryptid and the title 'North Star Bladesmith', "Do you guys have a personal problem with me or something? I just want to talk to your leaders about the territory but instead I have your angry faces and spiky bulwarks to look at."

"I only know what I was told and I was told to send messages as necessary and remain on stand-by until Mistress arrives," the man replies promptly while facing straight ahead like an actual soldier with no changes in expression or demeanor. "Your last message was your greeting and was replied by informing you they were on call with headquarters and their meeting was nearing closure."

I for the life of me had no idea how to deal with this particular situation. In the past I was usually the little guy who had to wait for meeting the big bosses as their show of 'professionalism' and status. However, this guys gave absolutely nothing away and did not seem worried or concerned in any way.

If not for the soldier-like way of standing at attention that he and only a couple of others in his group shared, I might have been able to find an excuse to get mad. How could I get mad at someone like him, though? He was just doing his job and doing it as simply and efficiently as possible.

He was not even 'sweating' which might give away if his clan was taking an offensive stance, just standing there with his hands clasped behind his back above a broad shortsword sheathed across the back of his waist like everyone else' primary weapons. Even if they carried a large hand ax or mace type weapon, they wore it uniformly across the backs of their waists with natural rectangular bucklers affixed to the sleeves of their armor to support these uniformly one-handed weapons.

Even the mages in the back were armed with pairs of large daggers across the backs of their waists despite carrying in hand an assortment of wands and staves in hand as primaries.

"Tell your leaders that I'm starting to get bored," I say quietly, deciding the test the waters and suddenly drawing several pairs of less trained eyes. Unlike this seem-to-be soldier and the others I believed to be military or specially trained in reality, the others were mostly normal people who could not help but give in to curiosity. Though, my mount drew more attention than I actually did.

Now, these people all looked over in unison and carefully searched my face from the corners of their eyes and I knew they were studying me specifically because I was able to make eye contact with each of them from the side.

Even though they did not seem particularly worried, these normal players somewhat readied themselves by loosening up their postures. Me being bored COULD potentially be life or death for them depending on the reputation and rumors that have now begun spreading about me. I did my best to stay low profile as much as possible unless it had to do with selling back in Sierra so there was probably nothing anyone could learn about me even if they figured out I came from Sierra in the game.

Unless of course Skooma's reality friends told them about my… sinister… personality from when we took down the imp hive. However, these guys were now a part of the clan and had originally been told by Skooma to live outside the city until we returned to master their primitive and combat skills. I had told Skooma intentionally that this would impress me.

Less than a minute after passing on my message, the lead greeter informs me, "Mistress and her lieutenants will be here shortly."

I simply nodded my head and finally nudged the giant black ruby hornet to land and close its wings. Only another minute later, a halfling dryad character wearing what looked like layered shimmery silk armor with thickly folded and pressed scales of red dyed paper about the torso and legs. It was definitely a light armor for what was usually a profession class character, but that was probably some of the nicest light armor I had seen outside of our own silk suits and even then it was only because of our buffs and the underarmor option.

Her entire entourage of three men and women wore matching suits of silk and large paper scales but theirs was also sleeved in smaller steel scales and completed with an Asian styled layered paper plated helmet. Unlike the leader, whose name was only Mistress before 'LV69' with no visible title, their armors were both white shimmery silk and bleached paper plates.

Wondering if copying the use of paper plates would be debuffed for stealing another person's idea, I find myself itching to try and scam rights to armor designs through a trap trade. However, just as I was pushing down the urge the lady dryad in front who was a little shorter and thicker than Oleander asked an interesting question. "You're the guy they're calling the zombie merchant, right?"

"Are you interested in a trade?" I ask in reply, wondering if I could not find a way to trade materials for recipes or something of the sort. "I like your armor."

"It will take a few drinks more than a trade before I can even think about taking it off for you," she replies with coquettish sarcasm. "I was just curious because I have heard a lot about you and what you have to offer from various sources. But, I'm sure you're here for a reason?"

"Thirteenth Incorporated, Duality Resistance, and Tragedy's Travelers have reached the end of their lanes and are sending out a friendly memo the concerned parties," I say with an exaggerated sigh. "We're going to relax on our lanes and enjoy the farming for a little while. You guys have until the next memo to farm your lanes for skills and materials and experience. The best spot to farm at is right in front of the fort, especially because if you guys go passed the fort I'm supposed to get angry."

"And here I thought you being bored was a warning, now you're going to get angry if we try to farm more than two hundred trolls at a time?" She asks with mock surprise. "What if there's consolation prizes based on how far each clan gets before somebody else reaches the finish line? Are all of us forced to receive the same prizes?"

"Talk to Thirteen about that, I'm just the guy with the zombies," I reply with a shrug. "If you want to make a good impression, though, I hear Little Thirteen runs a bakery or something and enjoys cheap food recipes. I, though, like your armor's materials."

"I already said no but you're going to try and pick off the parts and pull the threads anyway?" She asks coyly, maintaining the same leisurely attitude she had started with. "At least make it interesting for a girl and worth my while."

"What do you want?" I ask while slumping forward the rest on the back of my wasp's head in boredom. "You opened with zombie merchant, you make an ass of me with flirting, and you're fixated on prizes. Out with it."

Putting on a pouting expression, Mistress softly says, "So mean to us." What the hell? Then she straightens up a bit before saying, "You don't mind being an asshole or a bad guy by telling us to take the pity rewards. Well, we want to carve our names on the first raid boss. Your party is pretty small, take my elites and I with you to the boss and we'll except those pity prizes. Or, take out our competition for the pity prizes. In exchange, I'll give you some of our crafting recipes and maybe even swap materials with you."

"Define some recipes and materials," I say while sitting up once again with an impressed look on my face, "my own are C-plus gigantula cores, silk fabrics, and alchemy materials that might be of interest". This lady was vicious after being backed into a corner but she knew better than to lash out at us. Instead, she was lashing out at everyone taking up space in her corner.

"B grade magic resistant Quartz-eye Butterfly silk and cores and our own stock of C-minus hemp paper," she replies quickly. "We'll even throw in an exchange of our northern home region's alchemy goods if you can directly help us take out the competition as well."

"Three clans… one thousand gold per head, five for their leadership," I argue with a shrug. "Carrying you and your followers here to the boss is not an issue for such as recipes and material exchange. However, a man's life is valued differently than friendship."

From my experience, there were usually around ten leadership figured, as seen here by Mistress and her ten elites. As well, this camp had at least two hundred people loosely estimated by the number of their tents and pavilions. This group alone was an estimated sixty thousand in leadership and one-fifty thousand in peons while taking out all three of the 'competition clans' would bring in at least three times as much.

This was bottom-line half a million gold, almost fifty percent of the direct gold profit I had accrued since arriving at this territory. Before now, my personal wealth could have been measured in a couple of tens of thousand while the party's wealth overall could have been one or two hundred thousand gold. Sadly, the first clan I took out could be said to be worth six hundred thousand between the loan value and the scam value.

"That's… not a small amount of gold," she says while for the first time looking concerned instead of relaxed. "We're not a very large clan, the three-hundred-plus people here is all of us and most of us are leisure players who focus on crafting. We just happened to be based down the mountain range, but we're still the eighth ranked craftsmen guild in our server. Can you accept a down payment now and half after we have returned to our NPC shops to collect the rest?"

Three-hundred-plus? My math sucks! But, at least that meant more money for me.

"If you have an accurate headcount for the competition, we've got a deal."

*