Chapter 31: An Anomaly in Guild Structure

Within minutes, a crowd of players—Earth, Plant, Beast, and Water—had descended upon the Robot Head Prototype’s location. A major benefit of celebrity, I learned, is that players will pause their questing and divert their efforts at the drop of a hat to lend Ursamigo a hand.

“Alright boys, girls, and anyone anywhere in-between,” the Druid bellowed. “I need this giant Robo Head moved. We’re going to put it somewhere secret. Somewhere Telemoon can’t look.”

An excited murmur swelled from the crowd. Most did not have a full picture of the situation, but they were quick to ascent to an Ursamigo plan. Most counted thwarting Telemoon a bonus, I suspected.

“Lynxoxo,” he called to a player who shared his guild tag—Beast Budz. She gazed at him with penetrating sky-blue cat eyes, her fur-tipped ears twitching. “Can you and the lads roll this monstrosity to these coordinates?”

Handing her his gnarled and woody tablet, she marked the location on hers, then nodded and dashed away to join their other guild mates.

“Go on ahead,” Ursamigo bellowed. “I’ll meet you there and we’ll prepare it for hiding.”

“Was that an Animun?” I asked Relja.

“Her? No, she’s just a Druid. Same as Ursa. They have animal style gears and shapeshift abilities.”

“Why have I never seen Animun?”

“Different faction,” said DarkNeon. “They have their own zones and stuff, but most of it’s under development.”

“Traveling to their zones is really hard, too,” said Relja. “By design, I think.”

“The next expansion is supposed to add lots of Animun content, though,” said DarkNeon. “Might have to roll one m’self.”

My questions halted when the ground trembled. The Earth Mages started their casting; stones moved and dirt parted. Beast mages shifted into their burliest forms, taking positions behind the Robo Head to push. Some went ahead to pull with ropes made of thick vine conjured by the plant mages.

The head budged forward, then rumbled into rolling. The Beast Budz carted the Robot Prototype Head off into the forest with the efficiency of a group who raided dungeons together on a regular schedule. They conquered bleeding edge game content before many other guilds had even gathered enough materials to enchant their gear and brew the right potions to aid them.

Trees cracked and boulders shoved aside in their wake.

“I thought they were trying to be covert?” DarkNeon quipped to Relja.

Relja shrugged.

“Worry not,” said Ursamigo. “Telemoon will never see it again. I promise.”

Then to the accumulated stragglers, he raised his voice; “Alright! Show’s over.” To us, he said; “Let’s find somewhere quiet to talk, shall we?”

“Aye,” I said.

“How about right here?” said Relja, motioning toward the house rubble. “C’mon. I call the stumpy chair.” She walked over and sat on a smooth, carved stump which had miraculously survived the metallic meteor. In fact, an entire dining nook had survived somewhat intact.

“Can we speak here without being surveilled by hangers-on?” asked Vick5.

Despite Ursamigo’s urging, many players straggled, mingling and snooping. Strange events and celebrity sightings leave odd energies in the air.

“Not to worry,” said Relja, smiling. “Come here.”

We made our way across the branchy brokenness and took whatever seats were there; a slanted marble table, a wickerstone footlocker, a polished boulder fragment.

I stood.

“I knew it wasn’t a waste of time,” Relja said to DarkNeon as she retrieved a pouch from her robe and undid the string, pouring out a helping of [Whisperleaf].

She then cast [Spell: Circle of Silence] by whispering rhythmically and spinning her finger in circles above her head.

“Can’t cast any spells in here,” she explained, curiously audible above the whirling wind cycling around us. We were inside the eye of a tiny, quiet tornado. Bits of the former house-of-tree-parts whipped around us, but I could not hear a sound. “But nobody can hear us in here either,” she added. “I sit inside my Circle of Silence sometimes when I just wanna be alone or to clear my head. Things like that.”

“Pretty neat,” said DarkNeon. “I’m kinda jelly.”

“A perimeter of secrecy has been established,” said Vick5. “Proceed with your report, Druid Ursamigo.”

“If you don’t mind me asking,” said the Druid, “why is there a Telemoon guy with you?”

“Good blinkin’ question,” said DarkNeon.

“Oh, hush, please,” Relja waved a hand at her, then turned to Ursamigo. “He defected and has been helping us.”

“Vick5 helped me escape Telemoon capture,” I said. “He was instrumental, and has provided us with vital information. He means to take down his former guild, just like I assume you do, Sir Druid.”

“I do at that,” said Ursamigo. “I’ll spill my beans here, but let me say this: if you’re a spy, I’ll find your house and cause you real world trouble. You understand me, ‘ex’ Telemoon guy?”

“Affirmative,” Vick5 nodded. “I understand you are a game developer and can retrieve classified information. I do not intend to change my stance on Telemoon breaches of ethics.”

“A Telemoon member who’s grown a heart?” asked the Druid.

“That’s what they tell me,” said DarkNeon.

“Well...” Ursamigo paused, staring at me again, “I think Azwold trusts the Eld. That’ll have to be good enough for me.”

“I thank you,” I offered him a courteous bow.

“Alright,” Ursamigo breathed in, then let it out slowly. “I think it would amaze your friend that you guys found me first. I won’t give you a word for word account, but suffice to say Azwold wasn’t happy about getting the boot. He said it should have been impossible for plunder memory to land a successful hit on him.”

“It was a surprise to us all, I imagine,” I said.

“Yes,” the Druid nodded. “Well, imagine my surprise when the coffee go-getter shows up at my place banging on the door like the cops.”

“Coffee go-getter?” DarkNeon’s eyebrow went crooked.

“I’d seen him at the office before, sure, but he was hardly ever in the same building as me. That’s why I had to help him with the vine stuff. He doesn’t know much about actual coding... more like clerical stuff and, well, coffee stuff. But I never underestimate the value of my underlings. He was doing the nature gods’ work.”

“Oh my,” Relja said.

“So he showed up out of the blue and laid everything out for me,” he said. “I think I have a pretty detailed account of everything Azwold’s seen since the summoning. Your summoning, I mean.”

“I am glad for another ally who understands the threat we face,” I said.

“I do more than understand it, my good skeleton,” he said. “I work daily to thwart it. Who do you think keeps them from totally taking things over? There’s a small army of us working on the back end to keep them at bay. It’s a lot like what you saw me doing in my bear form earlier, now that I think about it. Except behind a keyboard. Well, I guess both roles are behind keyboards sometimes, but you get the idea.”

“Did Azwold tell you how we can locate him within the Spirit Realm?” asked Vick5.

“A straight shooter,” said the Druid, rubbing his needly whiskers downward, skeptical. “Yes. We’re going to the Grave Grove. It’s a Spirit Realm Nexus. I know some of you guys have seen at least two others, right? Azwold says he can tune us into a communication link with the Grandfather NPC if I can get you guys to the Grove.”

“Lead the way then,” I said.

“After I help my guildies make that robo noggin invisible to Telemoon scanners, I’ll pop offline for a bit and head into the office. I’ll have to be at my workstation if Azwold’s plan is gonna work.”

“It is a plan of Azwold’s devising?” I said.

“Mostly,” said Ursamigo. “We hatched it down in my basement, but I think it could work.”

“Care to share any details?” said DarkNeon.

“Not much else to share for the time being,” he shrugged, bear paw pauldrons rearing up. “But you don’t need me to guide you to the Grave Grove. It’s on any map. Head there and we’ll continue then.”

The Druid left without further deliberation. His humanoid form shifted to that of a wooly owl, hefty with ursine qualities, but still owlish. He beat his furry wings, and then leapt off into the sky, tunneling upward until he was beyond the Circle of Silence’s turbulent swirling.

Relja let the spell fizzle once Ursamigo had departed from view.

“Well, that was enlightening,” said DarkNeon, lounging in a log crook.

“I’m impressed with Azwold’s initiative, honestly,” said Relja.

“Aye,” I said. “Good to know he understands my predicament in a tangible way.”

“We must vacate the vicinity,” said Vick5.

“Right, yeah, hey,” said DarkNeon. “What’ll Telemoon do now? You know, now that they’ve seen you with us?”

“I expect they have added me to the watchlist. I am certain to be a target for neutralization. As if my present state is not neutralized enough.”

“I think you’ve still got power,” said Relja. “You have knowledge, right? Blam, blam. That’s better than spells… sometimes.”

“Your encouragement is both logical and appreciated,” he said. “However, my former guild does not abandon missions, especially imperative ones. They will be back. But... I detected something fundamentally altered about that last group’s formations and tactics. I have a tentative theory; there may be an anomaly in the guild structure. Maybe I am not the only active defector. Or maybe there has been a breach of hierarchy order.”

“An anomaly in guild structure?” said DarkNeon, juggling her daggers, feigning disinterest.

“We’re gonna be riding for a little while.” said Relja, putting her [Teal Mesa Strider Whistle] to her lips. “Now may be a good time to tell us more about how Telemoon operates?” She summoned Fizzu, holding out a handful of dried mushrooms. The mesa strider appeared in a twirl of feathers, swirling like leaves caught in a casting of [Spell: Circle of Silence]. He squawked, stuffing his gullet with mushrooms, and drawing the gaze of the few remaining rubber-neckers.

I boarded Yolo the Luminous Llama behind DarkNeon. Vick5 boarded Fizzu, despite insistence that he could keep pace with us and continue his explanations in between leaps.

With the rubble site behind us, he began:

“The Mind school of magic has a perplexing prerequisite: players of true genius level intellect. Not avatars, but players. To be born a genius is simply the start.

The Mentalist Troika are three of only a handful of Mind Mages, and the only known maximum level members of the school. They lead the Telemoon guild. Due to their secrecy and lofty, hidden-away existence, players often assume the Troika operates by way of brainwashing, trickery, coercion, etc. To my knowledge, this is not entirely true.”

“Probably more than you think, though,” said DarkNeon. “Why else would anyone stay a member? And how would you know if you’d been brainwashed, guy?”

“Logically?” he said. “I would not. Continuing: 90% of the Telemoon guild are limited to Fire, Earth, Water, or Electricity magic skill trees. They must choose one at character creation and are only permitted to progress along these magic trees to gain access to spells that fuel their Gadget Craft and clockwork agenda.

Select leaders specialize in other schools to fill key guild roles or eliminate weaknesses. And officers may delve deeper into the four primary schools to train underlings or to bolster against guild vulnerabilities.

Each of the three Mentalists have three direct underlings who dispense their orders or act as liaisons. Officers below them oversee either the operations of particular elemental affinities or specific class designations within the guild. Most read as simple ‘Fire Mage,’ ‘Earth Mage,’ et cetera. They rarely invest heavily enough for Realms of Lore to auto-detect classical class designations. Instead, Telemoon has coded in its own designations, such as: Engineer, Demolitionist, Fabricator, Builder, Combat Technician, Mender, Researcher, Chemist, Physicist, et cetera. The etc. addendum reflects Telemoon’s adaptivity. The designations are always subject to modification. Because science.”

As we listened to Vick5 expand on classified guild information, I looked up to see a trail marker, words carved into a slab of wood on a pole:

“Brambleberry Trail”

“Looks like we’re on the right path,” Relja hummed softly.

I had given Medett’s Enttang potion to Relja for safe-keeping. She knew worlds more about potions than I. Now, I thought I saw the outline of the glass through her robe pocket.

The sky darkened just a hint greyer and a soft thunder rolled like a distant timpani.

I had not imagined it; the potion in Relja’s pocket glowed a dim orange. Noticing, she took it out, illuminating her face between the ropey shadows of her dangling twin braids.