Chapter 444: Alliances and Schemes

The “Report on the Situation in Foul Swamp” was posted on the forum, and several forces under Murphy’s command related to the Foul Swamp incident began frequent activities.

There was no need to say much about Hog’s side, as his Smuggler’s Woods was the force most closely connected to Foul Swamp.

After Blood Claw Chief made his final profit from Plague Town, he completely cut off contact with that area. He had already begun sharing all the intelligence he collected about the swamp at extremely low, almost half-given-away prices with the student parties who had been active in that area for a long time.

Speaking of which, the student party really got lucky this time.

When they captured Corpse Mage Bella earlier, they were convinced that there must be hidden major storylines in Foul Swamp, so they decisively made Smuggler’s Woods the temporary headquarters of their “Crimson Beast Team” guild. Now that the storyline here has emerged, these brave students have become the first player force under Transia to enter the swamp.

They had been preparing for this storyline, no longer relying recklessly on luck alone, but rather on the experience they had learned during this time, continuously collecting supplies needed for long-term activity in the swamp during this period.

They even stockpiled more than a dozen boxes of alchemical potions to prevent insect bites, and when they decided to take action, every student party member who had a Spirit Mage profession, regardless of level or rank, had at least one Command Scepter.

And as the leader of the student party, Leading Pigeon achieved the game’s first “Blood Claw’s Friend” achievement.

As the first person to raise Blood Claw Clan’s reputation to Exalted, Leading Pigeon received a gift from Chief Hog and successfully mounted the cool skeletal warhorse that Governor Murphy had ridden before.

Other team core members had also switched to imposing dire wolves to ensure their movement speed in the swamp.

While other teams were still making advance preparations, the student party had already reached the Blood Claw Clan’s forward outpost in Foul Swamp according to Hog’s hand-drawn map.

Of course, nominally it was these vampire vanguards who drove away the weak Blood Claw gnolls and successfully occupied the gnolls’ outpost. After all, although everyone in the player faction knew that Hog had already become Murphy’s dog, and even Colonel Frayzer of the Goldflower Kingdom knew this point, the surface pretense still had to be maintained.

If news of vampires and gnolls colluding were to spread just as the Black Plague was about to break out, it would definitely cast an unwarranted shadow over Transia’s currently stable and improving situation.

Of course, although the student party acted quickly, this doesn’t mean they have secured an advantage, because the situation of Foul Swamp as a “new map” is different from all other areas players have conquered before.

It was just too big!

The entire Foul Swamp lies between Transia and the Dark Mountains. Including the small unknown area of the swamp forbidden zone, the currently known area is already equivalent to the entire Transia and even a bit larger. Even just the undead activity area near Plague Town is equivalent to the entire Baroness of Shadow’s domain.

A swamp this large plays a very important role in the entire continent’s ecosystem.

The Avalon Church’s claim that once Foul Swamp is contaminated by Netherworld forces it would have a devastating impact on the entire continent’s ecology was not fear-mongering. This was a conclusion jointly reached after repeated discussions among several Master Witch Hunters in the church.

Avalon would not stand by and watch Foul Swamp be occupied by nature’s enemies, as that would mark the beginning of an ecological disaster.

“This is way too hard to handle, isn’t it?”

On the watchtower of the abandoned but well-preserved gnoll outpost, Leading Pigeon looked worriedly at the swamp interior ahead that was emitting strange smells and greenish mists.

Visible wandering undead could be seen coming and going in the muddy ground in the distance. He leaned on his Spirit Mage staff and complained to Ah Yuen beside him:

“Although Hog reminded me before departure that we absolutely cannot split our forces, it wasn’t until actually seeing the situation that I realized just how damn huge this hidden storyline the developers buried is! This is definitely not something our guild alone can handle.

Our previous simple idea of striking straight at their heart now seems a bit too naive. We still need to find people to cooperate with, otherwise forget about attacking Plague Town, we won’t even be able to get close to the gnolls’ outer defense lines.”

“Have you ever seen a new map update in any game that could be tackled by a single player guild? Probably nobody except you thought we could steamroll this place by ourselves.

Relax!

We just need to maintain our advantage relative to other guilds.”

Ah Yuen showed his general-like bearing as before. While reassuring the somewhat anxious Leading Pigeon, he opened up the swamp map they got from Hog.

This was the “high-grade merchandise” they bought after raising Blood Claw Clan’s reputation to Exalted. Hog had marked all the information he discovered on it. As long as they followed the map, it would help the student party avoid most of the troubles that would appear in the swamp.

The terrain of this swamp was extremely complex.

Many places had forks in the path and even “death mud bogs” that were indistinguishable to the naked eye, just like quicksand – if you mistakenly entered them, there was no hope of climbing back out.

“Looking at Hog’s private map, there are three directions to attack Plague Town’s terrain, guarded by different forces under the gnoll sorcerers, we must choose one.”

Ah Yuen said to Leading Pigeon:

“We don’t have enough manpower to attack all defense lines simultaneously. I guess this is also the developers’ intention, in such a large and complex new map, for players to participate in the main storyline of attacking Plague Town, they must first choose one attack route.

And there’s Brother Alpha’s battle report posted on the forum.

Apart from Governor Murphy, there are a total of 8 forces that will appear in this major storyline. I estimate each attack route has at least one force we can choose to contact and obtain assistance from.

According to general game progression, we must deeply cooperate with our chosen force to have any chance of simultaneously advancing the storylines on all three routes.”

“Mm.”

Leading Pigeon nodded and said:

“So, in the most perfect scenario, we press the situation to our most advantageous position with the joint assistance of each supporting force, then us players make one final push to attack into Plague Town and eliminate those gnoll sorcerers?”

“Theoretically yes, but since it’s divided into three battle lines, there will definitely be fast and slow ones. Given the NPC intelligence level in this game, if they also participate in the siege of Plague Town, then the post-battle spoils will definitely need to be shared with them.

If all 8 reputation forces participate, then even if we take Plague Town, the benefits we can gain from it will have been diluted to the most basic level.”

Ah Yuen put away the map and said thoughtfully:

“So I think this is actually a hidden ‘Challenge Mode’!

Although the developers didn’t explicitly say so, they definitely set up this scenario where players on one battle line advance rapidly, faster than the other two lines to enter Plague Town and complete the destruction of the Plague Clan independently without relying on NPC leadership.

The difficulty of doing this would definitely be astounding, but if we actually manage it, the rewards we could get would definitely reach an astounding level as well.

There would definitely be at least the scale of one player stronghold!”

“Ohh, I get it, I get it.”

Leading Pigeon had a sudden realization and summarized:

“It’s like the progressive BUFF mechanism of Icecrown Citadel, the full-status Hakkar and the zero-light challenge of Yogg-Saron. These developers really can come up with new things every time. But given players’ current strength, it’s basically impossible to handle this without NPC participation and help.

Even if we gathered all the player guilds together we definitely couldn’t handle it.”

“Ah, we still have too few people and our strength is still too weak! It’s all because the developers won’t let large numbers of people in.”

Ah Yuen very unhappily pounded the railing. Staring in the direction of Plague Town, he said:

“We now have at most 200 Black Iron warriors in total. If we had 500 Black Iron players we could steamroll through, but no matter what, to maintain maximum benefits we need to avoid large-scale NPC participation in the Plague Town raid as much as possible.

You need to communicate with the leaders of several other guilds on the forum. Although we’re in a competitive relationship, we still need to reach consensus on certain key matters before taking action.

Additionally, we need to agree on the ownership rights of the three battle lines in advance!

The previous two raid instances were everyone going together, resulting in having to split equipment and benefits equally in the end. Although equal division isn’t bad, wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could have it all to ourselves?

Let’s make this into a raid progression battle!

Each guild takes turns!

We’ll only talk about everyone uniting if we really can’t handle it in the end.”

“Alright! I’ll go right now.”

Leading Pigeon immediately grabbed the communication orb to log into the forum. Ah Yuen himself flew down from the watchtower and relayed his thoughts to the companions below who were making preparations.

The few dormmates naturally had no objections. They were all veteran players who had long yearned to make some achievements, while the newly joined student party members were also eager to try, cracking their knuckles. Honest Dog Egg, who had just passed the Black Iron trial last week, even suggested:

“Now that our Crimson Beast Team has reached level 2 and gained independent recruitment authority, I see this activity won’t end anytime soon, so why not take this opportunity to do some ‘large-scale training’!

I and the four Scholar can recruit schoolmates offline, letting them enter the game during this new storyline to get some practice. I estimate this will be the last major event before the Black Plague arrives, so they need to come in and practice well so they can shine and add glory for us when the Black Plague comes.”

“Alright!”

Ah Yuen nodded, and nearby Shrimp Catcher carrying a large axe also raised his hand and said:

“How many people can we find just from our school?

Now we’re at war, we need those good brothers who can fight as soon as they log in. How about this – tonight after I log off, I’ll make a trip to the sports college in University Town. I also have several good brothers there, and they train every day with energy so abundant they’re about to bray like donkeys.

I’ll discuss with the student council leaders there and pull in a batch of strength-based beasts to boost our numbers.

The people from the sports college are truly ‘prime recruits’, each and every one a dedicated player.”

“Mm.”

Ah Yuen thought this idea wasn’t bad. At this time, Cheche who was sitting cross-legged recording today’s spell book shook his head while hugging his Command Scepter and said:

“We still need to select the best of the best. Even with a level 2 guild, we only get allocated ten to twenty spots each week. We need to hold a ‘martial arts competition’ offline! We want people who can get to work as soon as they come in, otherwise all our hard-earned lead will be spent on training newcomers.

Perfect timing, isn’t the ‘great lover’ Niuniu unable to log in these few days? Let him go ‘challenge’ the sports college and get us a batch of fresh forces.”

“Good good good, this idea is great!” 𝒻𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘸ℯ𝒷𝘯𝘰𝑣ℯ𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝘮

Path of Mud and Oil and Khaki Tony Tai’s smiles were about to twist their mouths.

They thought Cheche’s idea was excellent, but after Gugu Chicken and Cyborg Snail discussed it, they proposed another idea:

“Not just offline, we need to call for friends online too. Since this is a guild war, not only the large guilds but small guilds will definitely participate too. One battle line can’t be completely occupied by us, so we need to ally in advance with those small guilds and individuals who have good relations with us to form a united front.

No need to mention the Stonemason Guild where the Scholars are, those are our own brothers. I think that ‘Eight Demon Elite Group’ can be brought in too!

Brother Dog Egg, aren’t you their colleague?

Go make some connections.

Their evil path means they definitely can’t cooperate well with Meow King’s witch hunters and Brother Stick’s army, but we’re vampires.

Born creatures of midnight match best with these sorcerers.”

“Mm mm, those eight jokers are actually quite interesting, I think they definitely won’t refuse. Besides them, we can also cooperate with the Shadow Trail Sect, don’t we have several members in there?”

Honest Dog Egg chuckled as he pulled down his hood and raised the Soul-destroying Staff beside him. The four elite skeleton soldiers immediately stood up to guard him.

Hey, this is exactly the evil style we want.

“Right, we need to rope in the Shadow Trail Sect too. I heard Brother Mao and Uncle Yang have an exclusive quest in the swamp, so they probably won’t refuse to cooperate with us.”

With the plan set, now only execution remained. Ah Yuen took his good brother Gugu Chicken to enter the swamp first to clarify the battle line situation.

His heart was burning with passion – as young people, it would be a waste of these great times not to be a bit arrogant. This time they would really make some achievements, to show those society people the true strength of the “flowers of the motherland’s future”.

————————

While the student party was taking action, other guilds weren’t idle either.

They hadn’t made Hog’s Smuggler’s Woods a focus for conquest which caused them to fall behind at the start of this major event, but currently this falling behind still seemed within acceptable range.

After all, the developers haven’t officially announced the specific content of this major event yet, maybe there are still surprises waiting later.

Temporary falling behind doesn’t mean much.

In this 100% realistic world, going fast isn’t an advantage, being able to walk steadily and successfully reach the end counts as success.

Not only did the student party realize the necessity of guild cooperation, Onboard Joy Stick also wanted to unite with his “traditional allies” from the beginning this time, but some subtle ripples appeared in the situation this time.

“What do you mean? What do you mean by wanting to ‘compete’ this time? Do you have other partners outside?”

In the military camp beside the trenches of the Baroness of Shadow’s domain, Brother Stick who was still weak after just having his blood drunk by Melia stared wide-eyed at Meow King sitting opposite him. The latter sipped his tea and drawled:

“Just what it means literally. We Big Bird Team won’t cooperate with you this time, we plan to go solo. Those pieces of information Pigeon shared on the forum just now are very interesting. If it’s divided into three battle lines later, I plan to ‘contract’ one of them this time.

Brother Stick, your guild is already Transia’s number one guild now, you don’t need our few people to handle one battle line by yourself.

I won’t go join in the fun with you.”

“Damn!”

Brother Stick wasn’t angry.

He and Meow King weren’t just acquainted for a day or two, he knew this guy had ambition, but he stared at Meow King and said:

“How many people do you have? Wanting to eat up one line alone seems like too big an appetite, have you allied with other guilds?”

“Mm, Lady Aqua representing Silver Moon Team has reached an agreement with me, our two sides will jointly take one battle line.”

Meow King didn’t conceal anything and said:

“The Foul Swamp map is too big. On my way here I consulted Grandma Marianne, she told me that although Foul Swamp isn’t nature power’s preferred terrain, swamp power is also a branch of nature spirit energy, Avalon Church’s warriors can gain some natural enhancement within it.

Moreover, certain things produced in that swamp are very beneficial for our nature paths.

Lady Aqua guesses that once we take Plague Town, it will become a permanent unit similar to a stronghold.

Currently Governor Murphy still has one stronghold that hasn’t been distributed. Lady Aqua and I share the same opinion that Plague Town is very likely to be the third stronghold. We can’t give up such large benefits, this is no longer the time to talk about years of friendship, Stick.”

“But even if you unite, your numbers are still insufficient!”

Onboard Joy Stick frowned and said:

“Unless you recruit NPCs, but that means you’ll have to split off part of the spoils, unless… wait! The Torrent Knights are also standing with you?”

“Ha, indeed clever.”

Meow King grinned widely and said:

“Typal’s knights have the numerical advantage, we and Silver Moon Team have the quality advantage. Three-way cooperation can maximize benefits, so Brother Stick, from now on we’re competitors.

Let’s see who’s more capable!

Let’s see who can be the first to plant their flag on the high tower of Plague Town!

I have a feeling that in this major event, NPCs won’t participate much, this is a stage specially left for us by the developers! Now is the time for us otherworld warriors to present a victory dance for Transia.”