Two days later, it was the weekend.
A new batch of eager little players received their helmets and graduated from "just here to get a taste" to official "game testers." At dawn, they all entered Transia, the place they had been "dreaming of day and night." This time, however, there was no large-scale welcoming ceremony like before.
For one thing, as recruitment expanded, new players had fewer real-life connections to the veterans than before.
They were no longer real-life friends, just online acquaintances.
For another, the random event "Bitebone Clan Incursion" had appeared in Smuggler's Woods two days earlier, sending most of the veteran players rushing over there in a swarm.
The Bloodclaw Clan's event offered generous rewards, along with a random chance to obtain the rare "Vanguard Dire Wolf" mount. Chief Hogg had also opened a limited-time exchange for the Command Scepter, a "strategic weapon" made exclusively for psychics. That was more than enough to get the loot-hunters and min-maxers all fired up.
But because the monsters in this event were so powerful, the newbie players' room to maneuver in Smuggler's Woods had been severely restricted.
In truth, the reason the event had erupted so suddenly wasn't all that mysterious. Worried that the players would go adventuring elsewhere, Hogg had sent his loyal Nash to provoke the Bitebone guards. The little gnoll had completed the mission a little too "perfectly."
Who knew what method he'd used? In any case, he'd stolen the vanguard captain's flail and helmet, urinated on the barbarian captain's bed, and brazenly left behind the Bloodclaw Clan's claw mark.
That outrageous stunt had nearly set off the tensions already simmering between the two sides.
The Bitebone Clan's guards in Blighttown had long been suppressed by the gnoll warlocks. Their pent-up frustration exploded at the first opportunity.