Chapter 34: Conquest

Cass had awakened Lucky in the middle of the night (as well as the many women who were sleeping in his enormous bed). After a negotiation dulled by sleep, he had consented, in the night, to grant Cass a roc bird topped with a small tent.

- “Even though you should sleep, Stella ... there’s still room in this bed...” - “I will sleep someday ... soon, I hope.”

The roc bird, immense, made houses tilt with a flap of its wings. Powerful and fast, it had taken off due south and flown over the infinite world of Trust until the last hamlet she had conquered - recognizable by a flag - and then a bit farther. The sun was rising when Cass set foot on the ground: a plain planted with dragonblood trees, crisscrossed by wide, as-yet unnamed rivers, with, in the distance, high and rounded earth-colored mountains.

She began running eastward: first in long strides to get back into rhythm, then, once her body’s mechanics had fully adapted, she started a sprint that would never stop. Her strides were powerful, leaving deep prints in the ground; had she had a ribbon tied to her belt, it would have floated for twenty meters behind her.

She encountered many birds, trees, and treasures, which she named using an automatic, standardized nomenclature, amassing “gold coins” whose purpose she did not understand. And of course, she encountered hamlets: African huts, English cottages, turf houses or dwellings suspended in trees, caves, massive carved crystals, holes in the ground, lighthouses by the sea, and modern vacation homes - hamlets, then, that she passed in an instant, just long enough to name them, to establish a breeding pen, to create a path to the previous hamlet, and to move on.

Six days and nights passed at this exhausting pace, and she saw again the high, round, earth-colored mountain from the beginning of her journey and slowed her rhythm ... she caught her breath and closed her eyes without yielding to sleep. She sat down on a large rock just as a butterfly with wings of silvery light, the A44, landed on her nose.

First stage complete.

It was Aristotle Chike, young Lord of the Cauldron and recent recruit to the Storm Company, who was the first to stumble upon the path linking two of Stella of the Black Star’s hamlets.

Cass was summoned by an Arch, and, curious, she crossed it. She found herself at a crossroads, a bit farther west, between H55 and H56, two hamlets styled after American colonial houses. It was in a damp valley (V151), planted with willows that glowed at night (P1087).

Aristotle looked like a knight, mounted on a black warhorse with a golden mane, and his armor was made of glass tinted white.

- “Lady Stella of the Black Star,” he said politely, bowing,

“I seek a connection to your hamlets. Naturally, a high-level connection would suit me, but perhaps you have a proposal.”

- “I’m not interested,” said Cass without looking at him, scanning the surroundings. If only she could teleport through an arch that quickly ... instead of walking or using mounts...

- “A low-level connection suits me as well. I’ll continue southward.”

Cass turned back toward the Arch.

- “Wait, Lady Stella. You must connect your hamlets! Otherwise you’ll never make progress!”

- “We’ll see.”

And she disappeared.

Aristotle, annoyed, took it in stride and spurred his horse to follow the road toward the western hamlet H56. From there, a new road led to another hamlet, and he attempted another path connection.

This time, Lady Stella did not even cross the Arch. She replied through the in-game messaging system, a dove carrying an envelope:

“No connection possible. Move along.”

Stella had discovered in the past six days the equivalent of one-tenth of everything uncovered and named by players since the beginning of Trust. Among them, artifacts capable of shaking up the game: stones that produced a new kind of electrical energy (R7011), unlocking a new building in every city - the Guild of Machines - and also a new leafy plant (P10002) which, when smoked, granted a sixth sense. Migratory birds (A211) that enhanced map precision, a titanic beetle, the size of a city (A4331), that could have served as a king’s mount. All these riches were recorded in the buildings of the Explorer’s Guild in every city, and thousands of exploitation requests were pouring in.

Cass asked Lucky for the help of thirty AI servants to process them on her behalf ... with only one instruction: refuse them all.

Aristotle Chike filed his report with the Storm Company, which had already received numerous similar and troubling reports - as had all the other player clusters. The situation was very concerning, and in the ensuing panic, the major player associations had agreed to hold an emergency meeting. Ariane of the Black Crow had been invited to host it in Celestial Rome, the capital metropolis of her empire, but she had refused. It was ultimately Deirdre who organized and presided over it, in a vast stadium carved into the heart of an iceberg drifting on the Sea of Dead Stars. Her ice-white face, crossed only by her black eyes, seemed emotionless amid the animated discussions of the cluster leaders, while the thousands of seats for spectators were occupied by players of fantastical and unique appearances.