Floor 61
June 29 - Year 2 - 9am
Bladescape stood back from the rampart as she watched the group slowly teleport in. The crowd quickly grew in number. She could see several different guild tags by players HP bars. All of the major crafting guilds had at least a team of three on site to place a bid.
They had all been given basic dimensions and types of rooms needing to be designed, but they did not know the number of rooms or the overall layout of the building. The professionals had been given a few days' notice, so they most likely already had basic sketches and designs planned out. Now they would get the chance to see each room for themselves, and finalize everything.
While it hadn’t been publicly announced yet, it was obvious the Wondercolts had moved. Also, other than Argo, no one else knew the Wondercolts had grown. The crafting guilds had just been told to be ready at the Teleport Plaza in Lindarth at 09:00am. Information was power, and power was what they needed. The cost of furnishing the castle correctly would be astronomical. They had enough to at least start.
Kiefer materialized onto the platform, signaling that all of the Crafters were on the island. He began to herd them, with help from Lessa, towards the front entrance. They stayed back from entering as ordered. They could tell that they would be greeted momentarily.
As they finally settled down, Bladescape stepped up to the wall and onto a short step-stool they had placed there. She could easily see all of them, and they could all see her. That was the plan. They also could see she was wearing traditional Japanese clothing, something the Wondercolts had never been seen doing. It caused whispers to rise up.
Bladescape silenced them with her greeting. "Welcome, esteemed guests of the Wondercolts! We are thrilled to have you joining us today. We have two buildings that need furnishings. Each design team will have a guide who will show you to the rooms. Our cooking staff will have food prepared in the dining hall at all times. I know it will be a busy day for you all, so do not forget to eat. If your proposal is chosen, it will be well worth the effort today. Good luck to you all.
"However, before you meet your Wondercolts assistants for the day, let me introduce you to our Council."
Below her, the outer gate doors were opened. From Inside the gatehouse each Councilor came out.
"My right hand Wondercolt, Issa Backbreaker, the Iron Bulwark. Our Strategist, Nisa Astro. New to the guild but very important is Sensa Lobelia. And last but certainly not least, is Ichii Kamishi. Yesterday, Geigi Clan joined the Wondercolts. Our ideologies were the same and remain the same: to be the best people we can be. United, we are a much stronger guild and one that will continue to proudly fight on the front line and as members of the Assault Team. If you have any questions or issues that your guide cannot answer or address, they will send a message up our chain of command. We of the Wondercolts Council will also be available in the Guild Hall for most of the day if something requires our direct attention.
"We have a lot of exciting things happening, and while we are still flying the same colors, we are now a very large guild. That means we have 50 personal rooms to be furnished, each according to how their owner wishes it to be. So again, good luck!"
The Council retreated before they were swarmed. Wondercolts came out of the main building to be paired up with design teams. Kiefer kept order as they were assigned. It wasn't an easy task.
The Council met up in the guild hall, taking their basic chairs around the simple table. It was going to be a busy place, but the best location to be accessible for the crafters. The hope was that they didn't try to talk with them too much.
"That went extremely well," Lobelia said. "The only thing was you were not introduced as our Kaisho. And I know you skipped it on purpose."
"I still am uncomfortable with it," Bladescape shrugged. "I am sure you will fix that shortly."
Several groups came into the guild hall, sketchbooks and plans already out. They didn't bother the Council. They stuck to their job.
While the crafters worked on their design plans. The council began to lay out various party strategies. They hadn't done any work on how the parties were to be organized. They had chosen their party colors the night before, and now they could begin to work on BluCon's design.
As they finalized BluCon, it was clear the original Wondercolts would be broken up for those days. The game had forced this evolution, and they would only make new friends, while keeping the old.
"Excuse me," a gruff, but kind voice said, interrupting their planning.
"Gunk!" Bladescape exclaimed, standing up and shaking his outstretched hand. Gunk had been the lead crafter who had done the Wondercolts HQ in Mishe. His specialty was furniture, a combination skill of carpentry and sewing. He was an older, portly man who wasn’t well suited for combat. He had almost no hair on his head and his face was baby smooth as well. "It is good to see you here. Is it just you?"
"Valk is over there, going over fabric and the sketches. We have a third in our group now; Filigree, a wonderful artist. You should see her handiwork."
"AFCK has photos for the walls, but we will have plenty of wall space,” Bladescape said. “Later, of course, but not too far away, we will see what she has or can do for us."
"Of course," he replied with a grin. "I didn't mean to interrupt. Please, go back to what you were doing. I just wanted to say hello."
"We are glad to have you giving us a proposal," Backbreaker said from her seat. "We will keep things fair and honest, but I am sure you have seen your handiwork is still around."
"Well what else could you use?" He asked with a wink. "I hope you do certainly pick us, but we already got your business. And that reputation meant we got a whole lot more. We should be set for the rest of the game because of you. Naturally, we don't want to coast, what fun is there in that? I haven't heard of anyone doing an open invitation bidding like you guys are. It is good for the whole crafting community. It is like real life. Thank you for that."
Gunk walked away before anything else could be said and Bladescape sat back down. She quietly spoke to the Council. "I am certain Diemond will pick them for her room. I love what they did for mine, and I would love for them to continue what they started since my room is now bigger. And two floors."
"That is the beautiful thing of all this," Lobelia replied. "We only have 20 teams here, about 60 crafters. Most likely, every team will get at least a bedroom commission."
"I concur," Astro added. "I'll probably go with Gunk and Valk, for the same reason as Blade and Diemond, but there are still plenty of others."
"YelCon," Kamishi said, tapping the table and getting them back on track.
Astro growled a bit, readying her argument. "Look, I know how some of them feel, but YelCon needs to have the six Lancers together in a squad. We can train them and restrengthen their minds so that they will be fine, but we need a Lancer Squad since we have 6 lancers."
"They won't like it," Kamishi argued back. "We were promising most of them less front line time, and for several of them, they want to be off completely. They are trusting us, but I don’t want that trust to fail."
"We will make them stronger," Bladescape affirmed. "We have the training site picked out already. And this is YelCon. I know that means a heavier field presence. But we are limited in some of our operations. We will be BluCon most of the time, giving them a break."
"We need a Lancer Squad," Astro restated. "We can support it with two very heavy units that will go to boss raids, so we can train them to handle the fight. It will be fine."
"I hate to say it, but I agree," Lobelia finally said. "We need a Lancer Squad. It is mostly preference, not skill or timidness, for those members. I believe you can, we can, strengthen and build them up, revitalizing their morale."
"Now we need to build them three solid squads to support them," Bladescape said, looking at all the papers with names, skills, and notes on their fighting performance.
The bulk of their new members were shield and sword users. The biggest problem they were facing was morale. Most were sliding towards not being on the front lines. They were not saying no, like Jade, Ithilian and Delton, but some had been more vocal about hands off support of the guild pushing on the front lines. They couldn't push them too hard, or they would resist and possibly break under the strain. The only reason they were not shutting the idea out was the quota training. Over the next few weeks, as they trained them, they would have to boost their morale back to its earlier peaks, if not higher.
"Y'all, I can't tell Jack from Jill," Backbreaker stated, dropping her papers onto the table in frustrated defeat. "Let's get lunch."
"We should eat in here," Bladescape said. "I doubt there will be room."
They agreed and went to the hall. The private dining hall was where the food was at. They were using every surface and chair available for the dining hall. Two groups were working through the midday chaos around them to design the room.
Bladescape sighed as she saw the head table was empty. Everyone else was crammed into benches and Wondercolts were even standing. They desperately needed more seating, but today had them serving over 100 players, well beyond what they could have afforded to supply.
The Wondercolts were letting their guests go in front of them. They also let their councilors skip ahead. It was annoying, but Bladescape had no option but to go with it.
They sat down at their empty table. Bladescape wanted to make some announcement to allow the others to join the head table. She was distracted as Argo came out of nowhere with a plate full of food and sat down without a second thought.
"You guys have a sweet pad," Argo immediately said. "I got a thorough look at the castle. It is beautiful. The wooded garden is a nice relief from the stone. It is beautiful and calming back there. Doombunny's little shack is rather fun. She already has some unconventional details worked out."
Bladescape nodded. "I have an idea of what she is doing. And it's smart."
Gunk and Valk came up to the table. Filigree was with them. "I just wanted to introduce you to Filigree," Gunk said. “Our third member you haven’t met yet.”
"It is an absolute pleasure to meet you," Bladescape said with a smile. "Please, sit down. The crowd is too big to restrict this table to just the Council. It is my fault, requesting a stronger, more formal system of leadership and guild structure. But I didn't expect to be as revered as I am."
"You are some of the few outsiders to score a copy of the game," Valk stated. "It is common in Japan."
"So they keep telling me," Bladescape said with a shrug.
"If we sit. It will look like it gives us an unfair advantage," Gunk warned.
"I am aware," Bladescape replied. "But I want you guys to continue the work on my room's furnishings. It is justified by that alone."
With that, Gunk took a seat. Valk and Filigree joined them. In between bites, they did their best to catch up on the style and design of Bladescape's old room. Her new, two-tiered room presented some very unique opportunities. It was exciting to the three crafters, but they would be coming back on a separate day to do the bedroom design. At least Bladescape had what she needed.
After lunch, the Council went back to planning their organizational parties. It didn't last long as the final proposals were turned in. Now the designers would be turning to the personal rooms. Those bids would be private. Each member was given an allotment for a good bed, desk, and chair. Anything more would be done with private funds. They had enough to cover them, but weapons and raw materials for armor was the focus of the guild's finances during this transition. Those were always costly upgrades.
They began to work their way through the proposals, starting with the guild hall. Kiefer was satisfied with his room for the time being and was assisting them. He was presenting each proposal without any information as to who gave it. They wanted the best for them, not to choose the design off of a name, or a poor attempt to be fair and divvy up rooms so that everyone won a contract. This was purely business, just like any business proposals in the real world.
The four big bids were for the guild hall, the greeting chamber, the dining hall, and the main living room. With several other gathering places also a decent catch. It had already been decided that the main living room was going to be more formal. That removed half of the proposals for that room.
The main focus was the guild hall. They narrowed it down by votes until they had three contenders. They took longer debating on each one. They raked over minor costs, time estimates, and other minute details. One of the contenders had the tapestries designed and in place on the sketches, but they didn't include them in the costs. The note was that tapestries would be made by the Wondercolts' designer, Diemond.
"You three like it and it fits the old you well," Lobelia said. "We are bringing in a lot of new to the Wondercolts, and our numbers create a bit of mob rule. A traditional Wondercolts design is best. Kamishi and I like the one you all are hung up on. What is the problem?"
Kiefer answered it. "Because we didn't give any tapestry details in our specifications. All of the other designers added them, as expected. We were not sure if Diemond would be able to do more than the exterior ones. Diemond was aware that they were in the bid. Only one group would not include them, Gunk, Valk, and Filigree, because the two of them designed our previous guild hall and headquarters, and they know from working with Diemond on that project she does the tapestries.
"Then we all like it," Kamishi said. "Done and done. The front room is where I am concerned."
"Now hold on there, cowboy," Backbreaker said. "The thing is, how fair is that? We tried to remove all of that info so it was fair."
"If they did a bad job, or one you didn't like, they wouldn't be in the top two,” Kamishi replied. “And, we don't know for sure it is them. Do you really think they were going to come in and not play to what they know you like? A good designer would do that. And whoever's work that is, they are good."
Bladescape sighed in resignation. "Kiefer, that proposal is our new guild hall. Make it official. Now, the front greeting chamber, please."
Kiefer stacked up the guild hall proposal and then walked them over to the table they had the rest of the proposals on. He made sure to separate the final decision and then he brought over the proposals for the front room. They had to work quickly. They were supposed to announce the choices just after dinner. It was going to be another buffet style meal. And from what AFCK had hinted, I was going to be huge. It was important to not just feed the guests, but to make an impression that they were a strong guild, despite the new transition. And that they were financially stable. Plus, their meals were legendary and they had a reputation to uphold.
The split front room gave some rather odd interpretations of the area. One contrasted each side against the other: the left yellow, the right blue. Others seemed intent on having it used as more than a formal greeting place. The council settled on a formal, unified layout that was warm and inviting, but invoked some more traditional Japanese styles.
Once they got to the squad rooms, things sped up. Those were cookie cutter designs. Each was going to be the same and while they didn't want to have the bare minimum, they would not be spending a lot of time in them. The squad rooms were for quick strategy meetings for each party. Inexpensive and basic was the style they chose. It still left them with a half dozen proposals, but they cut each one out rather quickly.
After dinner, they presented their decisions. Bladescape gave a quick overview of their decision process to let everyone know it was as impartial as possible. For the guild hall, Gunk, Valkyrie, and Filigree won. They also won the private dining room for high profile guests, and the council didn’t even have a hint that it was their proposal. The team that won the front room was a new group, independent from the main guilds. The dining hall went to the largest crafters' guild, which was no surprise because they could keep costs down, and that was a major factor in their dining hall. The squad rooms went to another team Bladescape was unfamiliar with. The same went for the other gathering rooms. There were no other repeats. They had all done an excellent job.
Most of the personal rooms had been settled upon, but several had not. Every team that came out landed at least one bedroom. Gunk, Valkyrie, and Filigree won the charter Wondercolts' rooms, except for Doombunny. She went with someone different, but she also was in a unique situation with her setup in the Gardener's House.
The shrine was not something any of the teams were capable of. However, Gunk had an idea and was going to set up a meeting with a group. He liked the idea, and Valkyrie was probably going to be a member of that project, but they didn't need chairs and sofas, his specialty.
It wasn't that late once the last of the bedrooms were settled on. Half of the teams were booked up and didn't have time, cutting down the competition on their own. Their guests were properly shown out by Wondercolts.
Bladescape and Argo were throwing knives at the target the Wondercolts had made back at their old HQ. They brought them to the Castle and would get something more formal and permanent set up soon enough.
"A lot of changes are in store for you," Argo said as she threw a knife. "Good ones. It was fun running around and poking my head in everyone's business. Although, most of the time they couldn't see me because of Hide."
"It was fun having you," Bladescape chuckled as the knife glowed blue and the skill triggered the throw. There wasn't any deviation. It was just "throw". The difference became the player's skill to set themselves up correctly. In the heat of the moment, it was easy to set the wrong trigger point and miss a small target. The larger targets didn't matter much, but even a maxed skill would fail if the player erred in their set up so they missed. It was the only Sword Skill that didn't technically guarantee a hit. At least, the only one that Bladescape and Argo knew of.
"Get good at this, and maybe there will be a unique sword skill for this," Argo randomly said. "Maybe spear throwing or allowing you to throw full sized blades."
"Ha!" Bladescape laughed. “Can you imagine me throwing something like Harmonic Salvation at a boss and having it hit? Or even a solid one-handed longsword. Many of them are not light. From what I know, Kirito's Elucidator is very heavy."
"Hey, this is a fantasy game," Argo said straight faced. She broke down a second later into laughter. "I don't know how you could throw your sword. It is so big. And they get bigger! Not much, but they do.”
Argo threw a dagger and her attitude changed. "Ever feel like you are missing something there? With the two-handed skill?"
"A little," Bladescape shrugged. "I maxed it pretty quick and it's been a lot of coasting. I've been focusing on Outside System Skills, specifically the mix of Search in battle to predict monster algorithms. Why? Heard anything?"
"No," Argo said, pausing with the dagger glowing. "And that is what has my attention. The higher the floors, the closer we get to the special skills. We don't know what they are, only that there are 10 and they would be released late in the game. And with Commander Heathcliff's already out there, I can't imagine that we don't have at least 4 others floating about."
"Who would share it though?" Bladescape asked. "That is a lot of power in that knowledge."
"And verifying it is unique to you can bring a lot of hot coals on your head," Argo added. "For extra skills, usually you know exactly how you unlocked it and how others could as well."
"Doom has that fencing skill," Bladescape pointed out.
"Yeah, and anyone else is a long way away from finding out if she overlooked something when she maxed dagger." Argo let the next blade fly. It was a bullseye. "Personally, although it would take a lot for me to spill it, I think she has a Unique Skill. I am not sure what it is for though."
Bladescape risked it. "Fencing is the first defensive skill Doombunny has."
Argo was so shocked, it cancelled the triggered skill. "She doesn’t have Shield, Parry, or Weapon Defense?"
"Not even for a second," Bladescape replied, facing Argo instead of the target. "She is also lacking an armor skill. She was always going to be in a support role, and she was at the start. It evolved though, into a lean and mean damage dealing machine. Her Skill choices were... her, and not focused in combat or crafting. She has grown a lot as a person. Grown in ways real life never could teach her. In here though, she got a new start of sorts. And never once was it defensive in any shape or form. It was always attack."
"I never realized that," Argo replied.
"The idea we believe is that Fencer was for those with a rapier, who fought unabashed in a fury of aggressive skills that kept them alive, and avoided defensive skills, opting for attack. The fearless, one handed attacker."
"That would make sense," Argo replied, running calculations in her head. "Most of that info, specifically that she has it, is open and free because of the boss raid. So I won't charge for it or sell any more. Besides, all we covered is pure speculation. I don’t sell speculation."
Bladescape threw her last dagger. It was a perfect shot. "It is. But I have a feeling it is fact. Call it a hunch."
Argo shrugged and threw her last dagger, another bull’s eye. "That is, privately, good enough for me."
Argo crashed in the castle for the night, in the same room, but would be gone after breakfast. She had several things she had put off in order to see the castle. It was fun having her around and more open to chatting, compared to their usual business.
Bladescape (SS): Lvl 83 – Two-Handed Sword – Search – Weapon Defense – Leather Armor – First Aid – Battle Regeneration – Sprint – Acrobatics – Blade Throwing – Extended Weight Carry - Greatsword
Thunderborne (RBD): Lvl 75 – Rapier – Sprint – Acrobatics – Armor Pierce – First Aid – Battle Regeneration – Leather Armor – Weapon Defense – Extended Weight Carry – Search
Backbreaker (AJ): Lvl 78 – Heavy Shield – One-Handed War Hammer – Extended Weight Carry – Heavy Metal Armor – First Aid – Battle Regeneration – Fishing – Search – Martial Arts – Acrobatics
AFCK(PP): Lvl 75 – Two-Handed Axe – Parry – Cooking – Weapon Defense – Martial Arts – First Aid – Battle Regeneration – Light Metal Armor – Thrown Weapon – Musical Instrument
Diemond (R): Lvl 75 – Heavy Shield – Mace – First Aid – Battle Regeneration – Heavy Metal Armor – Tailoring – Light Metal Armor Forging – Heavy Metal Armor Forging – Jewelry Making – Extended Weight Carry
Doombunny (FS): Lvl 78 – One-Handed Dagger – First Aid – Hide – Search – Listening – Battle Regeneration – Fighting Spirit – Familiar Communication (Colorra) – Drug Mixing – Reveal -- Fencing
Astro (PS): Lvl 75 – Two-Handed Spear - Purchase Negotiation – Armor Pierce – Acrobatics – First Aid – Light Metal Armor – Battle Regeneration – Weapon Defense – Parry – Extended Wight Carry
Kiefer: Lvl 73 – One-Handed Curved Blade – Parry – Weapon Defense – First Aid – Battle Regeneration – Light Metal Armor – Slash Weapon Forging – Katana – Martial Arts - Search - Armor Pierce
Lessa: Lvl 72 – One-Handed Sword – Shield – Light Metal Armor – First Aid – Battle Regeneration – Equipment Repair – Metal Equipment Repairing – Armor Pierce – Search - Acrobatics
Joltron: Lvl 75 – One handed Axe – Heavy Shield – Heavy Metal Armor – First Aid – Battle Regeneration – Metal Refining – Cooking – One Handed Weapon Creation – Two Handed Weapon Creation – Extended Weight Carry