Chapter 2060: The Unspoken Understanding

The fact that there was a fight confirmed to the Clan Leaders that were being removed, and who had set off the whole thing in the first place, that they were not the problem.

They hadn’t fought the security forces, they were just being nosy.

Fighting spilled out into the streets, as the ambushers called for reinforcements, but it was too little, too late. None of the Clans that they came from were capable of even taking on Rue and the Captain, much less the might of the Darklight Host’s embedded protections.

What they couldn’t understand was how they had ended up in this position. Their target wasn’t even allied with the Darklight Host, so how had they set off a full-scale security alert?

Rue remained with the Elves so that they could see the Darklight Host openly supporting them in times of danger. So, there were no actual members at the fights, just constructs.

"Hey, did you see that? There are barriers over all the buildings. When that guy ran by, chased by gargoyles, he was just flinging skills, but nothing hit the buildings. It doesn’t look like it, but I think that they put a protective array over the entire village around their Guild House," a Peak Immortal mage whispered to the man next to her.

"I see it. Runecrafting, I think.

When the spells from the security force hit the walls, I see them activate. I don’t know how strong the actual protection is, but they’ve got a defensive spell on all the buildings, so they’re not damaged by friendly fire.

Guild members won’t damage the buildings because the System counts their skills as friendly. It’s a brilliant way to design a city.

They can fight freely anywhere that they want, without risk of levelling the place.

So, all the damage can be directly blamed on someone else, when it comes time to argue about reparations."

The mages soon had notebooks out, and scrying spells active, so they could watch the fighting in the distance without leaving the café. Nobody wanted to be in the streets until they knew what was happening, or until the sounds of fighting had stopped.

But many hadn’t realized it was an ambush attempt.

They thought that it was just a fight that had gotten out of hand, requiring the Guild to step in to calm tensions.

Which led to even more gossip.

"You know, they could have just taken it to the arena. If they wanted to fight it out, that’s the place. It’s even free to enter, " a warrior scoffed.

"Maybe it’s a blood feud?" A man at the next table offered.

"Oh, that’s possible. You can’t kill people within the Arena so they might have tried to fight outside instead. They should have taken it outside the city, but the other side might have planned to use a portal to leave.

There are a lot of them being set up lately, have you noticed that?"

"I heard that a regional alliance made a deal with the Darklight Host to set up portals so they could bring members from all over for the quarterly tournament. There are posters about the fights up all over town.

The first one is only a few weeks away, after all."

"Oh? That’s sooner than I thought. But it is the equinox. That would explain why they’re in a hurry to get all the portals set up. But if there are portal links to cities all over the region, it will be far too easy to run from a fight if you can get to the portal arrays."

The warrior nodded in agreement. "Exactly. They don’t just let people in, they let people out. Grudges follow you, and with this city being such a melting pot of Clans these days, I’m surprised that there aren’t more blood feuds following their leaders here."

From the back of the room, an elderly looking man laughed, and everyone turned to him. He was a Supreme-Ranked Clan Leader, but the System didn’t show a class for him, so he was clearly from a world with a different type of System.

"The Clan Leaders have an agreement not to fight here. Guild Leader Karl tells us all when we meet with him that if we cause trouble with each other in the city, he will ban us from the shops.

So, whatever idiot is fighting out there has never sent their Clan Leader to the city, or they’d know better."

That changed the whole conversation. They all understood that the reason they were all here was not just for the dungeon or the arena. Those were attractions that gave them an excuse to stay while they waited for the orders they had placed.

Or for the money to place the orders they wanted.

The Darklight Host and the New Home Merchant Clan were happy to purchase many of the resources that came out of the dungeon, which gave visitors a steady supply of cash, even if they weren’t getting the best price for their loot.

Half that money went straight to the gambling desks at the arena anyhow.

For many of the people here, sitting across from the entrance of the arena and drinking coffee, that was the reason they were never short on teammates for a dungeon run. Many of the Immortals were hopeless as gamblers, and they lost so much at the arena that they had to keep going to the dungeon for more loot to trade to the local warehouses.

There was even a new Elder that everyone affectionately called "The Moron" who organized groups for those with terrible luck.

He had some sort of theory or system for how he approached dungeon runs, and people actually believed that it worked because the drops that he got were always above average.

When most new Ascended Immortal groups were lucky to get an Epic Grade item out of a difficulty three dungeon, his group averaged two.

It made no sense, but he went every single day, and every day, they came out ahead. The effect was reliable enough that many people were beginning to think that he had a skill that increased item drop rates, and simply had terrible luck to balance out a broken gift.

Others, like the female Clan Leader on the second floor, knew that the problem wasn’t his luck in combat, it was his luck in love. She had seen the man strike out with a hungry succubus.