Grand Game 439: In the Kingdom Again (Patreon)

Note from Tom (13 March 2024): The chapter has been updated to remove some inconsistencies regarding the safe zone and use of the atherstone bracelet.

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84 Days Left to Broker Peace in Sector 12,560

Transfer through portal commencing…

Leaving sector 73,102.

…

…

Passage completed!

You have entered sector 75,172 of the Kingdoms, an open sector forming part of the Forever Kingdom’s Eastern Marches. The sector is under the control of the Devil Riders, whose claim is yet young.

The following restrictions apply to this region’s safe zone: only Devil Rider faction members may teleport into and out of the safe zone, only Devil Riders may purchase new buildings in the safe zone, and only Devil Riders civilians may trade in the safe zone.

Incoming sector-wide announcement…

Fair warning to any members of the Silent Blades and Reaper Clan stupid enough to venture here: if you are found—and you will be—you will be hunted down and summarily executed.

Signed, The Devil Himself.

I stepped out from the portal, my stride firm and my body relaxed.

I had lost count of the number of ley lines I had traversed during my time in the Game, but the experience was telling, and no longer did I find the transitions as jarring or disorienting.

Dropping into a crouch, I studied the surroundings. I was in a chamber of some kind. An empty, lightless room. Tattered banners decorated the walls, dirt collected in the corners, broken furniture littered the floor, and a thick layer of dust coated everything.

A chill wind wafted in through the open shutters—left unsecured and rattling—but no light. It was dark outside.

“Looks like Adriel called it correctly,” I murmured. “This place has been long abandoned.” The building housing the portal anyway, not necessarily the sector.

“Can I manifest then?” Ghost asked.

“Not yet,” I replied. Creeping to the nearest window, I peered out and beheld a collection of dark buildings—as unlit and decrepit as my current environs.

Sitting back, I rubbed my chin thoughtfully. It seemed that not only had the portal tower been abandoned, but so too had the surrounding town. There was still one last check to perform, though.

Sending psi rippling outwards, I activated my mindsight.

Tendrils of my will flooded the space around me, forming a net of about four hundred yards in diameter, a net that none but the most adept minds could evade.

Still, it failed to uncover any other minds.

The town, it seemed, was as deserted as it appeared—which was exactly what Adriel had predicted. According to the lich, there was nothing of import in sector 75,172, except for the exit portal itself.

In Adriel’s day, the sector had been a thriving domain, yet its economy had centered around the dungeon. But with Draven’s Reach closed for centuries, it was no wonder the region had been abandoned—largely abandoned, anyway.

“You can come out now,” I murmured to Ghost.

The pyre wolf did not need telling twice. Eagerly, she began manifesting, enfolding me in trails of black smoke. Leaving my familiar to her spell, I finally turned my attention to the Adjudicator’s message.

Most of the information in the Game alert came as no surprise.

According to Adriel and Farren, Draven’s Reach exited onto a collection of open sectors collectively referred to as the Eastern Marches. An open sector was one that bordered another, allowing anyone to pass from one sector to another by simply walking across the boundary.

Strangely enough, this was my first venture into an open sector—even though they were the most common type of sectors in the Forever Kingdom.

The previous two Kingdom sectors I’d visited—well, three if you counted the nether-infested one—had all been closed sectors without any physical means of entering from without. Still, it was not the fact that I was in an open sector that intrigued me, I’d know to expect it, after all. No, it was the rest of the Game’s message that I found fascinating—and troubling.

Just who in the blazes are the Devil Riders, Silent Blades, and Reaper Clan?

The first was obviously a faction, and at a guess, so were the other two. And considering the sector-wide announcement—and really, ‘the Devil Himself?’ Who did this joker think he was?—the Riders appeared at odds with the Blades and Reapers. Extrapolating further, I’d go so far as to say the region was in conflict.

Still, not my problem.

I didn’t expect I would remain in the Eastern Marches long. Crucially, there was no shield around the sector, nor was the Riders’ control established enough to prevent anyone from teleporting into or out of the sector. And that meant, I would soon be free to return to the guardian tower and discover how my stranded allies were faring.

It would require some careful prep work first, though—work I would get started on as soon as Adriel and Nyra got here.

I refocused on the exit portal. Just under a minute had passed since I’d left the dungeon, which meant my companions would be emerging soon. There was no way for me to communicate with Adriel and Nyra on the other side, of course, but we’d decided beforehand that they would delay their own transition by two minutes.

Ghost has taken the form of a level 211 stygian pyre wolf.

“Ah,” the pyre wolf exclaimed. “I smell grass, trees, and earth.”

I smiled. “It feels good to be out of the dungeon, doesn’t it?”

She bobbed her head vigorously. “It does.” She wrinkled her nose. “But the smells here are different from the valley.”

“Do you still remember your old den?”

Ghost tilted her head to the side. “Only vaguely,” she admitted. “It smelled of warmth. Wolves. And safety. This place has none of those smells.”

My smile faded. “What about Draven’s Reach? How does it compare?” One of my biggest fears was how the arctic and dire wolf packs would adjust to life in the dungeon. Would they hate it?

The pyre wolf flopped down beside me. “It’ll do.”

I nodded slowly, hoping she was right.

✵ ✵ ✵

Almost exactly on two minutes, the portal spun open, and Adriel marched out. A magic shield buzzed around the lich, and her hands brimmed with magic. Clearly, the former Death scion had come prepared for the worst.

Her gaze fell on me and Ghost, sitting at ease beneath the window. “It’s safe?”

I nodded in confirmation, and letting her spell fizzle out, Adriel lowered her hands and stepped out of the way just as Nyra stumbled through.

Unlike my own transition and Adriel’s, Nyra’s was a mess. Her eyes white with fear, the hapless apprentice missed one step, caught herself, then stumbled again and collapsed into a heap on the floor.

My lips twitched, but somehow, I refrained from smiling.

Jerking back to her feet, Nyra spun in a circle, her dagger held in a white-knuckled grip.

“We’re alone, Nyra,” I said gently, drawing her attention. “There is no one close by.”

The young sniper whipped around, and spotting my relaxed posture, her own tension eased. “That was…” She licked her lips nervously. “That was something.”

“Too true,” I agreed. “But don’t worry, it gets easier. The first portal jump is always the worst.”

Adriel snorted. “You should have prepared her better.”

“I had a lot on my mind,” I said defensively. Before she could respond, I turned back to Nyra and gestured at the naked blade still in her hand. During her earlier antics, it had only just missed scraping against Adriel’s shield. “You can put that away.”

“Oh… right.” Sheathing the blade, Nyra began dusting herself off. “Where are we?” she asked, her head still bowed.

“Exactly where Adriel said we’d be—in the Eastern Marches.”

Striding up to me, the lich peered out the window and into the lightless sky. “The town is abandoned?”

“It is.”

She sat down beside me, her eyes bright. “What about the sector? Is it unclaimed?”

I shook my head. “A faction named the Riders have claimed it,” I replied as Nyra tentatively joined us. “But there is nothing stopping me from teleporting out from here.”

Adriel’s eyebrows rose. “There isn’t? That must mean the Riders’ claim is still new.”

I nodded and, closing my eyes, recited the Adjudicator’s message verbatim.

“Hmm, that’s interesting,” the lich mused. “I gather you haven’t heard of any of the three factions before?”

“I haven’t,” I confirmed.

“They must be fighting over the sector,” Adriel said. “It’s the only explanation for the newness of the claim. However, why anyone would bother trying to hold this barren place is beyond me. Without Draven’s Reach to bring in players, there is little of value here.”

“A lot could have changed in a thousand years,” I pointed out.

“Hmpf. Not that much,” Adriel said scornfully. She narrowed her eyes. “Still, we’ll have to be careful. There’s no telling when the Riders’ claim will mature.”

“That bit has me worried, too,” I admitted.

“You will have to move quickly, then,” Adriel said. “Get the items you need, jump to the tundra, and then back again before—”

“I’m sorry,” Nyra blurted. “But what are you two talking about?”

I glanced at my apprentice sympathetically. Only a few days ago, everything Adriel and I spoke of would’ve been a mystery to me too, but during our journey from Draven to the archlich’s court, Adriel and Ceruvax had taken it upon themselves to cram as much Game lore into me as they could. The net result was that I understood the intricacies of sector ownership better than I ever had.

Yet I’d forgotten my apprentice lacked the same knowledge.

I glanced questioningly at Adriel, but she waved me on. “You do it.” She smiled. “It’ll be a good test to see how well you remember your lessons.”

Rolling my eyes, I turned back to Nyra. “You recall what I told you about factions and sectors?”

She nodded. “Only factions can claim sectors.”

“Correct.” Laying my hand on Ghost’s head, I idly ran my fingers through her coat while I spoke. “But no claim occurs instantly. Ownership is always transferred gradually. And like with everything else when it comes to the Game, the stages of ownership are clearly defined.”

“What are they?” Nyra asked.

I held up my right hand and ticked off points on my fingers. “New. Young. Mature. A new claim is anywhere between a day and a month. A young one ranges from a month to a year. And anytime a faction holds a sector for longer than that, the Adjudicator considers their ownership complete.”

“Ah,” Nyra said in understanding, “so that’s what the Adjudicator meant by ‘young claim.’ The Riders have owned this sector for less than a year.”

I nodded. “The problem, though, is we don’t know how much less.”

The young woman frowned. “Why is that a problem?”

“Because the Game grants a sector owner more control as their ownership matures,” I replied.

“And after a year,” Adriel said, finally interjecting, “a faction can stop anyone other than its own members from teleporting into or out of a sector.”

Nyra nodded sagely. “I understand now. So, we must leave quickly or risk being trapped here.”

“Exactly,” I said.

“So, when do we leave?” She looked around—searching for another portal, I thought. “And how do we do that?”

Adriel and I exchanged glances. “That’s where it gets more… complicated,” I said.

Nya stared at me expectantly, waiting for me to go on.

I took a deep breath. “Neither you nor Adriel can accompany me to the guardian tower—at least not right away.”

“Why not?” the young woman demanded, her voice rising. The lich stayed silent. She knew all this already.

“Because Adriel is the only mage amongst us,” I said quietly, “and she doesn’t know the coordinates of the sector we need to get to. Therefore she can’t open a portal for all of us.”

“B-but… but what about that aetherstone bracelet you showed me,” Nyra protested. “I thought it held the coordinates we needed.”

Adriel sighed. “That’s the thing, girl. I can’t use it.”

Nyra stared at her blankly.

Adriel’s lips twisted. “Have you forgotten? I’m not a player. And that bracelet is a Game artifact.”

I said nothing. This was one of the big drawbacks to traveling with companions. They could not hop from sector to sector as easily as I could with the aetherstone bracelet. Ordinarily, this wouldn’t be a problem, but without a mage who could use the bracelet…

“Oh,” my apprentice said, shoulders sagging. “So, what then? Do we stay here?”

“You and Adriel do,” I said. “But it will only be for a few days. Safyre must still be on the tundra. And the moment I make contact with her, we’ll be back to fetch you and Adriel.” I glanced at the lich. “Unless you know another sector where it will be safe for you to wait?”

As a non-player, Adriel could open portals to any sector she already knew, but what she couldn’t do was read the aether coordinates of a sector she hadn’t visited from a Game item.

The lich hesitated, then shook her head. “In any other sector I took us to, we’d face the same problems we do here. My information is centuries outdated, and the places I know may be in worse conditions than this sector.” She glanced around. “Better we wait in this deserted town.”

Nodding, I rose to my feet. “Then I guess I better get ready to leave.”