Tranquil Territory - 1 - The Apocalypse
The panicked din filling the tavern above echoed down the stairs of the basement rank with the smell of fear and despair. Gathering around a table in the underbelly of Akihabara, they had barely managed to form some semblance of self-control before arriving – some had yet to manage even that much – but the small role play guild Tranquil Territory had managed to gather their most powerful core members quickly – each of the six were members of the central high level core of the guild – in the hours before the update they had been in Akihabara completing a local dungeon run.
The faces on the small gathering in that cramped room ranged from the finely featured yet despondent elven child Tyr, the time ravaged visage of a shell-shocked fox tail beast-man Aja, from a beautiful but terrified werecat Muse, the fire-scorched face of Marduk a dwarf mumbling under his breath in confused anger, to the gentle expression on the young half-alv Feronia and finally to Hachiman himself – the broad but slightly angular features marked with indecision, an uncharacteristic quality in Tranquil Territory's guild master and Feudal Lord.
The bard Muse was a voluptuous beauty, since her arrival she had been constantly yammering about how wonderful Elder Tales now seemed and how responsive the non player characters, she had talked non stop – almost as if she could not help herself. Finally the irate sorcerer Marduk had exploded in anger screaming at his guild mate for silence.
Recognising how important maintaining strong team work was, the youth Tyr quickly stepped forward, his immense armour bound form had clanked heavily as he interposed himself between the two, guardian's were always in the thick of it, but heated words were far more dangerous than blades. They were not the only ones who joined in the mounting dispute, soon only the unresponsive Aja and Hachiman were not involved before finally he had heard enough and slapped his open gauntlet against the table before him drawing the argument to an abrupt close.
Since then several moments had passed in uncomfortable silence as the cleric Feronia sought to calm the sobbing Muse, the seemingly more mature bard was gently cradled by the young half-alv girl who spoke softly, comfortingly – it made for a slightly strange sight if one did not know that the player who appeared as Feronia was the elder by nearly five years compared to the player of Muse.
Though it all, the gaunt form of the ancient fox tail had barely altered, still locked in his stupor ; the druid Aja barely seemed aware of his surroundings such was the shock of his sudden appearance in Elder Tales; his usual cutting wit and elaborate tales silenced. Indeed while Aja seemed the most obviously affected, the small group (the most elite members of their small guild who had been online when the expansion pack was uploaded) were behaving far from normally. No, that was unfair Yasuo realised - it would be abnormal to be normal right.
For each of his friends, he was seeing more and more of their out of character selves – the player behind the character. Marduk might have shaken with misdirected impotent rage earlier, yet usually was a humorous if somewhat condescending middle-aged prankster. For Muse, though her thin mask of intense interest and excitement burst, the somewhat flirtatious but honourable and capable woman who supported her allies in the midst of even the worst battles was reduced to a trembling little girl. The usually air headed Feronia revealed her keen awareness and her compassionate maturity. Tyr had never liked being on the front lines when it came to conflicts between party members, as the character had always been reserved even demure, yet as the player he had quickly stepped forward to try to deflect the argument.
"S- Sorry Misaki," Marduk's breath shook as he visibly strained to restrain himself, one hand clutching his face wearily, "I don't know what came over me. I know I shouldn't have but... I..." He sighed heavily. "Really, I'm sorry."
Though still sobbing Muse managed to nod her head, mumbling something that sounded like 'It's okay,' her shaking seemed to stop and the sounds of her half-muffled cries quieted as she managed with Feronia's help to regain her composure. After a few moments she straightened, "That's no good my stout little fellow, you won't be popular with the ladies like that." Her eyes were still red from crying but her voice carried with it a hint of her usual self, the gentle somewhat provocative chiding.
Marduk still looked abashed and Muse shaken, yet there at least it seemed some progress was happening, on the other hand Aja had yet to say a word. While the wily old fox did not always chat away without a care, his slightly barbed tongue would usually have managed to pierce through the conversation and with the barest effort diverted it into a long winding tale, which would of course somehow end with Aja having saved the day; yet it seemed today it was Aja who needed saving.
Near the door Muse and Marduk awkwardly looked to make amends with Feronia and Tyr chiming in to smooth things over; Aja's silence had helped to ensure that he had been left unattended and that was something that Hachiman could not continue to allow.
Standing up he walked around and pulled out a chair to the right of his seated friend, pulling it out from the table he sat down and leaned back in his chair and spoke softly, his voice pitched for the fox alone. "Are you worried about her?"
"What the hell are you talking about? Midori will be fine! Who said she wouldn't be? Why would I be worried?!" Aja snarled before giving a start, dropping one of the tasteless mugs of what the innkeeper had claimed was honey mead, the half empty pewter cup did not shatter against the floor but rather bounced slightly with a dull sound, sending the rest of its contents creeping across the packed dirt floor as the mug wobbled on its side then was still, though a notable chip could now be seen near the rim of the vessel.
The sudden outburst had drawn the other's attention, though they kept their distance, warned as they were by the obvious emotion and the lack of the Hachijo dialect which Taku usually suppressed when speaking as Aja in favour of a more classical Japanese tone, the ancient slightly awkward turns of phrase suited the elderly fox far more than Taku's normal voice.
Yasuo had known Taku for three years now, though the two met by accident – in a private hospital that Yasuo's family owned; Taku's wife and he had come to see his eight year old daughter Midori who had lived at the hospital since she was born. "Don't worry Taku, the doctors there are top notch."
Yet instead of being relieved Taku gritted his canine teeth and clenched his withered hands in anger and frustration. "But if I don't work then- Damn it Yasuo... you know how much her treatments cost, Riko could never afford it by herself. If-" His voice trailed off in despair; his wife Riko was a smart and hard-working woman who laboured long hours as a receptionist, but the costs of Midori's treatments were immense, only Taku's job in a small legal consulting firm enabled them to make ends meet; though the hours were long and he seldom had the opportunity to play Elder Tales as frequently as he had previously, the job allowed him to take care of his family. Surely he must be frustrated that he had chosen today of all days to log back in.
"My parents would not allow such a thing Taku," Yasuo declared quietly and patted his friend's shoulder before giving a small, slightly tight smile, "certainly not with both of their sons in the mix."
The Fujiwara's were wealthy, almost obscenely so, it was one of the reasons that they were able to indulge Yasuo's preoccupation with travelling and the small private collection that he had garnered of significant cultural artefacts and artworks. It was an immensely costly hobby, one which consumed more money in a single month than all the years of Riko's treatment so far – a fact he had never considered before now.
Over the next half hour Hachiman had finally managed to get in contact with the other members of the small guild, of thirty-four members, eighteen were online when the disaster had occurred and of those only the six in the tavern cellar were outside of Susukino; that was where the Tranquil Territory had run a campaign called Bruised Egos, with one of their fellow role-play guilds, Outside Faction.
Outside faction was a guild nearly five times their size and one of the most active role-play guilds on the Japanese servers, certainly among the largest – unlike Tranquil Territory, they were not organised around a more formal structure of character relationships, such as lord and retainers, instead Outside faction was a more loosely associated group of clusters of characters with various types of relationships, some pleasant some antagonistic, they cooperated in order to provide each-other with a broader and more intensive experience as characters rather than mere players.
For example Yasuo knew that the campaign Tranquil Territory and Outside Faction had been undertaking involved a small conflict between some of the lower and middle levelled members of the two guilds, it had been a dispute which had escalated from a small drunken scuffle to a series of attacks on each-other's caravans carried out without their superior's awareness. That was why it was only Yasuo who knew of the campaign and not Hachiman, each of the characters involved had been taking great care to prevent word of the conflict from emerging, yet as players they had often discussed it in the previous weeks. And so it was that Hachiman and his five high levelled compatriots sat in a bar hundreds of kilometers away at a time when many of the weaker members of his guild had been in combat; had Hachiman known about the conflict they would likely have already dealt with it, but since he did not – many of his liege-men were able to experience the wonderful opportunity to make friends and enemies, to progress certain aspects of their stories and to come to a deeper understanding of their own characters and their relationships with other characters – it was an invaluable experience that might not have been able to occur were Hachiman involved.
Since they were not involved with Bruised Egos (the campaign in the north) and indeed their presence would have stifled the opportunity for the campaign to have developed as desired, the six had travelled south just before the expansion pack was released they had decided to complete a dungeon just to the west of Akihabara.
Their party with Hachiman the samurai, Tyr the guardian, Aja the druid, Feronia the cleric, Muse the bard and Marduk the sorcerer was rather lacking in fire-power; so there were many dungeons they were not suited for. Hachiman himself was perhaps the most versatile in terms of boosting their attack in a pinch, while he usually tanked he could instead focus on damage dealing only switching back to tanking as a last ditch support. Yet Hachiman's skills were less suited for dealing with large numbers of enemies - even his damage orientated equipment was suited for protracted combat against stronger foes, not for dealing with large numbers of weaker enemies. The result was that their progress through a dungeon was slow, each battle became more protracted resulting in greater danger of enemy patrols vastly complicating the encounter.
The dungeon had been a gruelling exercise for their party, though the boss battle itself had been easy by comparison. They had barely completed the dungeon with about twenty minutes and used call of home to head to the last city they had gone to, Akihabara, to sell some of their loot and to restock supplies then the Elder Tales servers went down for maintenance and the new expansion pack. When they had logged back in... the world was very different, yet each of the six had returned to Akihabara, while the rest of their guild was in Susukino.
In the half hour since the initial commotion in the tavern cellar, reports had been flowing in through calls from their friends list almost non-stop. The fairy rings were not working, combat was apparently still possible, yet vastly different from before and even more importantly, equal parts encouraging and disturbing, players could revive.
Bruised Egos had been cancelled and each guild had withdrawn, gathering their members so that they might draw a sense of security from one another though it appeared in Susukino as in Akihabara, there were those who were fairing poorly from the fear and uncertainty, lashing out at each-other over trivialities, standing insensate no matter their surroundings, wailing with inconsolable terror, others seemed to be falling into pieces from nervous breakdowns. As Yasuo he might have hesitated about what to do, but for Hachiman the course was clear. His trusted and valued vassals had suffered a powerful trauma and now tore at each other in confusion. In these uncertain times it was essential that they join up with those they knew and could trust and so it was that the party of six were to rejoin their comrades in the north.
In Tranquil Territory, Hachiman was surrounded by characters who sought a peace and that they had not found within the lands controlled by the lords and ladies of Elder Tales – they had gathered to his side to create their own Tranquil Territory. It was not so different, Yasuo realised, from what they now sought – a place of peaceful security where the players could await salvation, some way out of this world. Yet for all that, he knew this was not the same as their usual role plays – there were often times when a character might be scared, yet the player behind was never in danger, there was always some margin of safety, yet now that layer had been torn away, leaving only raw fear and uncertainty in its place; the players desperately needed something to grab their attention to ease that rushing panic. For that they needed a goal to pursue, something that they could work on with the belief that it would lead to them achieving their goal, that everything would be okay.
But not every role-play had a happy ending - and even happy endings often have a price.
Tyr finally returning interrupted Yasuo's musings, the heavy footsteps on the tavern's wooden steps preceding him - it had been nearly a quarter-hour since the diminutive guardian had left the cellar. Now that he was back the young elf wore a disgusted look on his face. "Things are pretty bad out there; people are sitting in corners rocking back and forward, others screaming at each-other or People of the Land, there have even been a few fights for absolutely no reason - at least until the royal guards just appeared from thin air."
"Do not think badly of them Tyr," Aja said quietly, "whether it be fear over what is happening in Elder Tales or back in the other world - there is a great deal that might weigh on one's mind right now." The 'other' world, where a regular player might have easily said the 'real' world, many role-players avoided such phrases, for to suggest that the other world was real was to imply that this world was not, such a reminder merely served to undermine the immersion that they sought.
"No it's not that," Tyr hastened to say, "rather I couldn't..." he lowered his face slightly, his voice dipping and then trailing off.
Muse had looked at the fidgeting boy with a growing, somewhat sadistic grin, "You couldn't find a bathroom?"
If anything her words caused Tyr to shrink even further, his voice abashed yet somewhat defiant as he replied. "I looked everywhere, the tavern, the merchant district, the guild house. Have you ever realised there are no toilets in Elder Tales!" In the silence that followed that last phrase seemed to echo in the air, causing Tyr's face to redden.
"Oi oi oi - you didn't...?" Aja's face slackened with disbelief as he began to ask, but couldn't bring himself to finish the question; Feronia edged slightly away from the elven youth - disapproval, disgust and commiseration fought a three-way war for control of her expression, while Muse was LITERALLY rolling on the floor with laughter - her question had been meant in jest, but this was too much.
"Hell No!" Poor Tyr was outraged at the implication and quick to shout his denial. "I just had to go behind a building." The words served to mollify Aja and the formerly petrified Marduk, Feronia however did not look as disgusted as before though her expression of disapproval lingered and as for Muse, she merely laughed all the harder, tears at the corner of her eyes.
"Well since no one has really needed to go to the bath room before, I guess some facilities for players are lacking." It wasn't often that someone needed to have their character going to the bathroom (at least not in Elder Tales nor many other MMOs); so even more hardcore role-players for whom immersion was so vital had largely not recognised the omission But despite his carefully worded reply Yasuo couldn't quite hide his mirth, earning him a pout from the young elf, though even he was forced to smile sheepishly. "Some things are going to take some getting used to."
Chapter notes:
I know this starts slowly, it present a significant disconnect with the prelude; this has been done because I believe it is essential to show some of the deeper player reactions to the situation in addition to the more apparent character aspects. In addition it helps set the scene a bit in examining actors involved in the narrative and some of the major types of actors: characters and players. Getting into the major content areas such as the feudal system and the reason for the contention between the brother's on the battlement will need to wait until the end of this arc – sorry but that is how it goes.
You might wonder at some of the demographics I have been basing the characters on; I have been basing characters on a range of between early teens and more mature gamers around their late forties, younger teens are likely to be less common in Tranquil Territory with more as late teens or older (though Elder Tales itself would be a broader demographic).
This is partially due to the fact that in the series players are often presented as if they were in their twenties, also Elder Tales has a twenty year history and that many of the veterans are likely to be older players as a result. Likewise many of the player specific aspects (rather than character aspects) such as their troubles regarding the potential implications of their current predicament are more varied, such as having dependants, spouses, jobs etc. I think that this will be a particularly interesting area to examine.
Oh and yes I am aware of the availability of NPC facilities such as bathrooms as was examined in the LN, however at this stage the idea of looking for such within NPC dwellings had not occurred to the player involved; therefore this will not be altered despite being somewhat incorrect.