Chapter 25 - Killer trails

ASTORIA is the world which had capacity to have all types of players. The limiting factors would be that segment AI's logic and capacity of players to think of different things.

From the timeline, it can be seen that the system would not have intruded with compulsory quest if the probability of that village turning red village was very high. Red village or red towns are places here PK players are considered kings and the set up is geared to cater them. In these places, red players(PK ) would rest, get consumables and sell the items looted.

Before that, if there forms a group or a party of player killers, they can pay some coins to have temporary supply point. It would act as revival point too. That costed extra, as resetting revival point in huge process.

Some people would make changes to these temporary shelters to have feel of home. Few would fortify themselves to have safe HQ. Obviously, it costed more and more. One of things Player killers would not lack would be money.

In the village, there were 2 PK groups, so 2 different revival points. Chances of other players entering those places....more when system had given the quest. Many would have congregated or revived there, the location would be naturally glowing.

The one Royo crashed was apparently headed by a player with brain, thus the fortifications which held back this motley crew. But not for long.

The next system update showed.

Remaining PK players - 15.

These mad people had sent 9 players to automatic reset. That was the easiest portion, though.

It was cat and mouse chase between PK and this party. These people had self interest and self preservation and the leader was apparently not the type to let others die vainly. This leader may not be one of the original leaders of groups, but in time of need, he stepped up and slowed down the rate of deaths and resets.

5 system updates later, remaining PK was still 8. The number did not change for next 2 updates. The players in village were like eating popcorn and seeing the number of PK dwindle, none of them had ventured out to fight. In the beginning, the ideas were there but support was absent. Later.....to speak plainly, they turned cowards. Now, they did not even think about reasons why they did not hunt PK players.

Now, it was evening in the game. Nearly half the time given for quest used up. And the environment was favouring PK. First casualty from normal players happened at this time. Some one had snuck in the village limits to kill a player. Compliance vanished, just like that. Many just logged out. It was too much of a stress. Some went even further and reset their character. Waiting....is horrifying.

The new quater hourly update now showed new details. Remaining PK player -8. Normal players at present -14.

So, apart from Saachi's party, only 10 players were still logged in. Saachi called one of the players still available for call to know the situation. That was when, the party learnt that someone was killed within village limits, so many had just logged out.

Royo did not hold himself off. He cursed creatively for some time. Neither Kylie nor he stopped Royo. Both felt same way. Bree stopped him.

Bree : " Enough! We are not playing and hunting for their sake. It's good enough that they have not hindered us or sold information from our side. The main thing to concentrate now on is to reduce that number to zero."

Niyam : " Will your plan work? When it was made, it was under assumption that all had scattered far away from village. But...."

Royo : " Bree is real genius. Her plans never fail."

Kylie : ...He just nodded.

Saachi was all for plans, off the track plans, elaborate plans, stepwise plans. The end result was more important. Other outcomes could be faced later on.

Problem was the set up portion and even Bree could not do anything about it. She was very sure about the end part. She even earmarked few spots which were likely to be final confrontation places. Problem now was to wage war to reach the 'terminal moment' level. 8 players, scattered all around the map and it was turning dark. Why would they stay together? To get slaughtered together? Right now, they were worried about their lives, so they were not thinking in lines of 'I-die- but- you-die-too'.

Bree : " If only we had some options to negate their hide skill."

Saachi had a light bulb moment, thus proving successfully that he fitted into this group.

Niyam : " Hey, wait a minute. Did the quest said, we have to kill these people?"

Bree : " No. Just that they have to die till they reset."

Saachi : " Then why should we run around? Look, the maximum level owner would be a elite player or the interim leader. In either case, their levels would be at peak of level 4. If they had reached level 5, the system would have made announcement. So where will this peak level 4 player, with guards, no, no, no...he would not have guards but scouts. So where will he be with a bunch of scouts near by and others scattered just far enough to be diversion and reinforcement?"

Bree looked at the map. Her map had annotations made by her, so it was more elaborate than ones generated by system depicting areas already explored by the player.

She pointed a portion of map. It was border of sorts. Level 3 and level 4 monsters both would roam there. And their capacity was slightly reduced in nights when compared to other monsters near by.