Chapter 58: Ban

Jaxir came out of the Glimmer gate in a very good mood, considering he now had an Epic set piece he’d had no route to an hour ago, a Rare Blessing in his inventory worth more than most players would probably earn in their entire lifetime on the game, and a dormant divine set waiting for him to wake it up.

Though he was still a little disappointed that the set itself was dormant, that didn’t feel like much of a problem right now when he had somehow managed to benefit from not just one legacy, but two of them.

Jaxir looked toward the last remaining portal and walked straight over to it, already half expecting the ridiculous run of luck to continue. Instead, the disc of light went hard and flat beneath his boot, his foot coming down against it like he’d tried stepping onto a countertop.

―

[Access Denied] 𝒻𝘳ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝒷𝘯ℴ𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝑐ℴ𝑚

―

"Worth a shot," Jaxir muttered, stepping back off with a chuckle that didn’t carry much disappointment.

Behind him, light bloomed and died as Nick came out from beneath the feathered statue moving considerably better than he’d gone in. He was still limping and filthy, but at least he was upright now, and the grin on his face made it obvious he’d gotten something he was quite pleased with.

"Guess who’s not dead," Nick announced.

"Congratulations. You get something good?"

"I got something fine," Nick replied, his voice carrying enough false casualness that Jaxir immediately knew he was lying. "Very reasonable, perfectly average, nothing worth getting excited abou—"

Nick stopped halfway through the sentence when his gaze drifted downward, then settled on the low-cut boots Jaxir had just pulled from the Glimmer inheritance. The thin ribbon of starlight trailing from their heels was subtle, but it was also apparently very familiar.

His face went through several emotions while Jaxir watched with interest, beginning with confusion, passing through recognition, taking a brief detour into something that looked suspiciously like grief, and finally settling into a resigned sort of squint.

"...Those are Glimmers."

"They are."

"Those are the Epic Glimmers."

"They are."

Nick looked down at his own sparkling shoes, the exact style he’d pointed out and apologized for wearing within thirty seconds of meeting Jaxir, then slowly looked back up. "I farmed that set for six months before I finally got it, Jaxir. I stalled my level for a damn half a year."

"That’s rough, buddy," Jaxir replied with a sympathetic nod, though the smug grin on his face probably ruined the effect.

"Six months."

"If it makes you feel better—"

"No, don’t even say it." Nick raised a hand before Jaxir could continue, already shaking his head. "Whatever you’re about to say is just going to piss me off, I’m sure of it."

To his credit, Nick only stared at the boots for another moment before he started laughing at the absurdity of it. "Whatever, fuck it. Some guys just have all the luck."

"Good attitude, good attitude." Jaxir tucked the boots away. "I’ll let you know when my luck is actually good, though."

Nick gave him a look that made it quite obvious he didn’t believe that for a second, then seemed to remember the much larger problem waiting outside. "Enjoy it while it lasts, because we still have to walk out of here and there’s a church illusionist parked outside waiting for us.

"Wait, you think if I ask her out she’ll say yes?"

Jaxir’s lip twitched, which Nick immediately caught.

"What’s wrong? Am I not handsome enough?" Nick rubbed at his chin as though genuinely considering it.

"Uh... sure, buddy, but that’s not really the problem." Jaxir struggled to keep a straight face, which only made Nick narrow his eyes.

"Worse how? Am I ugly?" Nick asked in horror, then laughed and shook his head like the thought itself was ridiculous.

Jaxir couldn’t help chuckling. Nick definitely wasn’t handsome, but he wasn’t ugly either, probably a little above average if Jaxir was being generous, and if the man’s confidence could carry him the rest of the way, that was good enough.

"What the hell are you laughing at? You look like death," Nick snorted.

"Before I lost a ton of weight, I was actually pretty handsome."

Nick scoffed. "I can’t see it at all."

"Well, somebody saw it," Jaxir replied, though his voice trailed off before the words had fully left him.

Nick noticed the shift in tone and, to his credit, didn’t press.

"What were you saying before, anyway? What’s worse?"

Jaxir’s expression brightened again as he remembered. "So, the good news is that my Mark of Ire is gone, buuuut... the bad news is I’ve been banned from every city, town, and settlement under the jurisdiction of the Minor God of Gravity."

Nick’s face went blank for a moment, then his entire body cringed as though he’d just watched Jaxir get split in half.

Jaxir frowned. "That bad?"

"Jaxir." Nick pressed two fingers against his forehead and took a breath. "You don’t understand what you just told me."

Jaxir waited for him to continue, suddenly far less amused.

"The game map is divided into a hierarchy. There are one hundred and eight provinces in Divinity, one for every Minor God, and when I say each province belongs to one of them, I mean the whole thing belongs to them." Nick held both hands flat in front of himself, one above the other as he spoke. "Every city, every town, every shitty little hamlet with four huts and a well, every teleportation array, every auction house, every bank, all of it sits under one name."

Nick moved his hands farther apart. "Those hundred and eight provinces are grouped into eighteen countries under the eighteen Major Gods. That’s the whole world, that’s the whole structure."

Jaxir’s stomach started doing something unpleasant.

"So when you say the Minor God of Gravity banned you from every settlement under his jurisdiction..." Nick pointed toward the temple entrance. "You’re talking about this entire province. There is literally no legitimate establishment anywhere in it that you can enter."

Jaxir stared at him for a moment before repeating the obvious conclusion. "...So I need to leave the province."

"You need to leave the province."

"Okay." Jaxir nodded slowly as he worked through that. "I guess I’ll walk."

Nick smiled in a way Jaxir immediately disliked.

"What level are you?"

Jaxir didn’t answer, and Nick clearly didn’t need him to.

"Right, whatever it is, it’s definitely not Level 50." Nick crossed his arms. "The regions between provinces aren’t patrolled and they aren’t balanced, nobody lives there, and the mobs average around Level 50."

Jaxir’s face tightened. "Average?"

"Average. People who want to cross between provinces either pay the ridiculous cost of the teleportation arrays or hire the Level 80 knights stationed in major cities."

"What about strong players?"

"How the hell should I know what they do?" Nick shrugged. "Most of them hide their levels, so I don’t even know how high they go."

Jaxir rubbed at his forehead as the shape of the problem became increasingly obvious. "So the only ways I have to cross the border require resources I can only get inside cities."

"Yup."

"Which I can’t enter."

"Which you cannot enter."

Jaxir stood there for several seconds with his jaw working, trying to think of an angle he was missing. "There has to be a way around that."

Nick hesitated before answering. "There are shrouds, like the one the illusionist outside is wearing, except the better ones are more comprehensive. Hers suppresses her level, but there are others that suppress identity, name, Marks, standing with Divinities, all kinds of things."

Nick gestured vaguely toward his own face. "Dark cult members use them when they need to hide their Alignment, criminals use them when they want to operate in major cities, and sometimes the Gods those groups follow help hide them for specific missions."

A small ember of hope lit up in Jaxir’s chest.

"Great. Where do I buy one?"

"They’re Epic grade at the weakest."

The ember went out.

Nick almost looked apologetic now. "They don’t sit on shelves either. Maybe two or three show up at auction over the course of an entire year in a province this size, and the whole point of an auction is that it happens in a city."

Jaxir stared at him.

Nick stared back.

"...In a city."

"In a city."

"Which I can’t enter."

"Which you cannot enter."

Jaxir tipped his head back and looked at nothing for a while, wondering exactly what sort of karmic crime he’d committed to deserve this. "I have the single shittiest luck of any man alive."

Once he lowered his head again, though, he forced himself to think instead of complaining.

There wasn’t a clean answer here. He couldn’t buy his way out, couldn’t walk his way out, and if he simply accepted living outside every settlement, all of his equipment and resources would need to come from farming or PKing, which didn’t sound particularly sustainable.

Rest wasn’t the issue since he could always log out, but progression definitely was.

Then Jaxir’s eyes flashed as another thought surfaced.

’She isn’t a fool.’

The Goddess of Light had managed to hide her inheritance inside a place where only her sisters’ should have existed, directly beneath the nose of the Minor God of Gravity. More importantly, she’d erased his Mark of Ire almost instantly, which made it feel like whatever remained of her Divinity was still capable of pushing back against the man who had stolen her seat.

Her goal wasn’t difficult to understand either. She wanted revenge.

’You wouldn’t ask someone to kill a God and then hand them nothing to fight with. Right?’

Jaxir’s thoughts returned to the dormant set waiting in his inventory, and suddenly the absurd requirements attached to it felt slightly different. Maybe gathering all three ancestral inheritances wasn’t simply a cost, maybe it was the final test, the last barrier the Goddess of Light had created before deciding whether someone was actually worthy of carrying her mantle.

’If I can finish this, I bet she’ll give me exactly what I need to deal with this problem.’

It was still a guess, but whether this was real life or a video game, the logic held together well enough for Jaxir to trust it. More importantly, it was the only useful thread he had, so there wasn’t much point standing around pretending he had another option.

He bet that if he completed the set, he just might get the solution to the problem that was hanging over his head right now.

Jaxir turned toward Nick and grinned.

"I need a favor."

Nick eyed him immediately.

"You can still walk into cities, I can’t." Jaxir raised one fist, the spatial ring he’d taken from Aidylan shining on his finger as he opened a trade between them. "I need the first and second pieces from all three inheritance sets, Feathery, Glimmer and Twinkle. Commons and Uncommons only, I’ve got the Epics handled."

Nick’s brows rose. "You have all three Epics?"

"I need every other piece, and I need them fast," Jaxir confirmed.

The number appeared in the trade window, and Nick stared at it for long enough that Jaxir almost wondered if he’d broken him.

"...Okay," Nick finally muttered. "Yeah, I can do that."

"Good man."

They spent the next while sitting in the ruined temple and allowing their HP and MP to recover, neither of them particularly eager to walk outside while still half-dead. By the time they finally stood again, Jaxir felt something close to human, and most of the pain in his ribs had faded into something manageable.

"Ready?" Nick asked.

"Not remotely."

"Perfect."

They stepped out of the dungeon together and into the fading fog of a formation that should have dissipated hours ago, only to find that it hadn’t.

Standing in the eye of it with her staff in hand and bracelets jingling softly around both wrists, Rin was still waiting.