《SwordGate》 Chapter One My mother was a VRMMO addict. Unfortunately for me and my father, that meant we took care of the house while she was off playing SwordGate. We both loved her dearly but everyday she would spend just a little more time in the capsule. ''Just a little more?'' she would ask us, and we had no choice really but to oblige. For you see, in SwordGate, my mother was actually a self-made tycoon billionaire. The money she made in-game could be directly moved into real Credit funds for us to use in the house. She had several tens of millions of Credits in Gold in SwordGate, and the pile of gold and Credits in our bank account kept growing by the day. Honestly, I never wanted to touch one of those damn capsules. That... that thing took my mother away from me. I was pretty much was raised just by my dad, and had minimal time with my mother in my life. Here¡¯s a little background about me: I was born on May 20th, 2120. A little weird and outlandish of a date, but, whatever, I didn¡¯t get to choose it. I was born into a loving home, free of VRMMO influences and grew up in a well-balanced life. My father ran an auto mechanic company and my mother did various things for extra spending cash using the ¡°Intranet¡±, a ¡®Bigger, better version¡¯ of the internet, or so Sigma Studios pronounced it as. Sigma Studios, or the developers of massively popular games such as EverWorld, an MMORPG that had caused more than a few businesses to flop and people¡¯s lives to be ruined due to the addictive functionality of the game. However, it was 2137 now, so I was 17, having recently graduated high school and still living at home, and my dad still generally ran his business from home,and also tended to hang out at a local gas station and chat with his buddies in the mornings, which was good. I wanted him to get out and not be cooped up in the house all the time, hoping that maybe one day the woman he loved would come back to him. Hope that she would realize that she had a family waiting for her in real life. A family that loved her, no matter what. I do realize things could have been a lot worse. I could have had abusive parents or had drug-addled parents or alcoholics, but instead I got a father trying to raise me and a VRMMO addict mom. I know she cared for me. She cared for both of us, quite a lot. My dad and I actually had separate capsules, much cheaper versions than hers, to go visit her in SwordGate whenever she had free time off from work. It was nice, since SwordGate was right on up there with the top of the line VRMMORPGs, so everything was extremely real. Pain, pleasure, the sights and sounds, the smells, the feeling of rough burlap on your fingers. Everything was just like real life in that game. I remember my mother telling me and my father something strange during a visit with her in her household, rich with servants and finery, while eating dinner at a table comprised of well-cooked pork as well as vegetables and the like. There apparently was a phenomenon going on where the AI ¡°Developers¡± in the game, along with the Developers of the game in the real world, were cutting people¡¯s connections from the game permanently. The people who were connected to the game had their minds either virtually stuck in the game, leaving a lifeless corpse in the real world, or ¡°virtually¡± slingshotted back into reality from their character, never able to play the game again. There were no ¡°halfway¡± marks, no brains split into two or anything like that, it was either one or the other. That¡¯s what I read online at the time anyway, I wasn¡¯t sure of the actual cause. When my father heard that from her, his face turned from a stony cold glare at his food to look at her, with hope in his eyes. I could see he thought he had a chance of getting her back into the real world. To rehabilitate her. He had already tried once by removing the capsule from the household, and he almost died in the process. People would do anything to travel to a place where they don¡¯t have to worry about anything in life, even if virtual. She did not look at him, for she knew what he was thinking already. It seemed to me that my parents were so far apart already, why not just divorce and get it over-with? But I knew why, because to her, she wasn¡¯t having any issues, and she was wearing the pants in the relationship, so to speak. And she needed someone to assist in raising her kid, and it was never going to be her, and she knew it. I really felt bad for my father in that moment. There was basically a 50/50 gamble on whether or not his wife would come back to him in real life. That she would once again be the woman he fell in love with. Although, she hadn¡¯t changed: she was still very business-like as well as beautiful, and had the brains to go along with the confidence she exuded. He just didn¡¯t want to be with her in a fantasy world, And what person doesn¡¯t want that for themselves? But to be with your wife or girlfriend in forms you both probably like and want to be in, in a full immersion capsule with full senses, it¡¯s literally the same as real life, but for some reason my father just did not want it. And I can see why, you still retain the information you¡¯re ¡°in a damn pod¡±, as my father always liked to put it. However, one day I returned home from school and noticed the lack of a distinct noise in the house. The slight hum of the VRCapsule. The capsule wasn¡¯t on. I thought to myself, ¡®was mom actually outside of the capsule?¡¯. I could barely suppress my excitement to give her a hug. Which was weird for a child of 16, but I was still close with my family. I immediately ran to the second floor of the house to find my mother, but she wasn¡¯t up there. I went back downstairs and looked in the kitchen, but she wasn¡¯t there either. I looked everywhere but the capsule, because the capsule was off, how could she be in it?Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author''s preferred platform and support their work! And then it hit me. I went to check the capsule, and as I came close to it, it hummed to life. The capsule was in sleep mode. I looked inside the capsule. She was in there. But it didn¡¯t look like she was breathing. I immediately tried to open the capsule door, but it was locked. Upon detecting my mother in the capsule, the capsule itself announced: ¡°USER DECEASED. CONTACTING LAW ENFORCEMENT AND EMERGENCY OFFICIALS TO DOCUMENT DEATH AND REMOVE BODY.¡± My eyes welled up with tears. Not for the loss of my mother, who, again, I was not very close to, but for my father, who had been talking about my mother, his wife, coming back to him for weeks. It was clear his hopes were so high, he had a very high chance of crashing, burning, and exploding within seconds of hitting the hard ground. I turned my back against the capsule that was now just laying on the ground. The capsules sat at 45 degrees for some cardiovascular reason in the air, and it was lowered to the floor, to be laid flat, pretty much a coffin for my mother. I cried. My father came home an hour or so later that day from his part time job, even though we didn¡¯t need the money as I mentioned, and he too, noticed the hum from the VRCapsule was gone. When he came in the door, I popped up over the capsule to look at him. The emergency responders had already been to the house and had gone already. I had fallen asleep sitting next to the capsule, probably as close to my mother as I had ever felt my entire life, the capsule having gone to sleep. My activity around the capsule woke it up though, and he saw my bleary eyes and instantly realized what happened. We both didn¡¯t know what to do. We both knew what had happened though. She was a permanent resident of the virtual world now. Of SwordGate. But we both didn¡¯t want to believe it. We could both go hug her in SwordGate and have her see how stricken we were, but we both didn¡¯t know if it would matter to her or not at this point. She got what she wanted. We buried her using the funds she was sending to us. It was weird, knowing that she was permanently part of some game''s mainframe and "alive" in SwordGate, but out here, she was dead, and we were using money she made, for her own funeral. Unfortunately, she had long since alienated herself from her family, so it was just my dad and I''s closest friends who came to the funeral, along with my father and myself, of course. My father broke after a week. We still kept up visits to mom every couple of days for a few weeks since he wanted to see her, but to him and me, it just wasn''t the same, even though the game was literally straight comparable to real life. But he broke and instead of joining her in the game, he killed himself. I remember his suicide note perfectly, and up until my "event", I carried it around in my wallet with me to remember him by, even though I had it memorized after a week or so. A lot of people think it''s morose, but it''s the last thing my father left me besides his skills raising me, so it means something to me. It read: Dear Zack, You know how hard it''s been for you and I. With your mother constantly in that damn capsule in that damn game. I don''t know what happened, honestly. We were such a happy couple, and I honestly didn''t think she was even interested in anything related to video games. She had never even expressed interest in video games, much less something as hardcore as VRMMOs. But one day I came home and she was laying in the capsule, right where it was when I raised you. We never moved it. Heh, sometimes I think she loved that game more than she loved us. I wanted her to come back so desperately that I was willing to do anything to do it. But there was nothing I could do. Those capsules are foolproof. Trust me, I''ve tried to sabotage it more than once.And each time that damn capsule repaired its internal circuitry and prevented me from doing whatever I did to it ever again. I soon gave up and just started taking care of the house. Then, for one week, SwordGate''s servers went down and everybody was kicked off of the game. Your mother was informed via a screen in the capsule VR Headset, and when she told me, I remember I was so overjoyed. My wife had come back to me. She had started playing that VRMMO a couple years after we got married. And during that week, we had a lot of fun. I was hoping she would remember what real life was like, how much better it was than a lame video game. And during that week, we fooled around a lot. And a couple days before the servers were supposed to open back up, we found out she was pregnant. Her doctor recommended to go very easy on the VR for a while, at least until you were born. And true to the doc''s word, she did. She spent a lot more time with me sitting around the house, helping with chores, groceries, everything I had been used to during the first 2 years of our marriage. But after she had you, she went straight back into SwordGate. I almost broke then, but I didn''t. I couldn''t. We had a child now. We...I had you. So, I focused all my energy into raising you. To be the best man you could be. To not make my stupid mistake and not divorce myself from a VR addict while I still could. To not make any of my stupid mistakes actually, hah! But you grew up, and you learned to take care of yourself. And now you''re almost twenty-five. You don''t need dear old dad to take care of you anymore, you''re a man''s man. You just remember all those lessons I taught you growing up, and you''ll be a fine productive member of society, and a fine husband and father, I know you will. I love you, son. I always will. And maybe I''ll meet your mother, up there in the big, cloudy sky, and I''ll have my wife back, and we''ll both be watching you, for eternity. Farewell. I love you so, so much. Dad When I originally found that letter, I was so angry. How could he leave me? After everything we both had been through with her, after everything we did together, supporting each other''s lives, why? Of course, I knew why, because the love of his life was gone, gone forever. And there was nothing he''d ever be able to do about it. Chapter Two Years went by. My father was long dead and my mother still living eternally in SwordGate, her corporation booming. She sent letters to me, maybe three times a year, a little more, a little less some years but it was all the same to me: she betrayed our family. I wanted nothing to do with her. SwordGate was by far the most advanced VRMMORPG out there, and one of the few to incorporate full feeling into the game, both translating brain waves into emotions and physical feeling as well, through the use of extremely complicated technology that I really did not care to find out how it worked. The game¡¯s developers, Sigma Studios, had a lot of pride in their creation. It was like a completely new universe was born because of them, and they knew it as well as the players. I, however, only valued the game as a tool to communicate with my mother a few days a year. That was all I used it for, typically. However, in high school I was really big into playing a MMORPG on my desktop computer called EverWorld. I wanted nothing to do with Virtual Reality but my passion was still RPGs, even multiplayer ones. However, nobody could resist the pull of VRMMORPGs, and after having gotten over my mother¡¯s real-life death, I sunk myself into Everworld, for quite a long time. For six years, in fact. I had so much free time that I climbed guild ladders over and over again, becoming officers of multiple guilds, as well as upgrading my PC over time with my mother¡¯s money, which was a drop in the great sea of money she had at this point. But I always came back to Everworld. However I did eventually, in when I turned 22, decided to create a separate character in SwordGate to play under my mother¡¯s nose. I had dropped down to visiting my mother only one time a year or so, because of obligations in Everworld, whether it be leveling new people who joined the guild to gathering or crafting items for people, MMORPGs still had a very large fanbase since the VRCapsules were still fairly expensive. You could buy a VRHeadset for about the price of a normal game console, which at this point in 20XX was ridiculously cheap (typically 200-300 dollars) which was maybe a week¡¯s worth of grinding money in most VRMMOs provided you didn¡¯t have other responsibilities or something. A typical VRCapsule ran for, at the cheapest model, about 1,000 dollars, coming with all sorts of technical support and needing to contact support for that model a lot, to the top tier models at 5,000 dollars and up, which was entirely possible to get money for in various games. But again, SwordGate was the top contender for this. With it being the most popular game equaled more real life money to exchange for the gold in game. So with that being said, I did begin playing SwordGate, retiring from EverWorld and using my mother¡¯s old VRCapsule to begin playing. I entered the capsule, lifting the lid slightly and activating the capsule, having it raise the lid for me after lifting it a little bit with its pneumatic servos. I laid down in it, and the capsule, detecting a person inside, immediately slowly rose to a 45 degree angle and closed the lid on the way up. The capsule whirred to life, heavier than earlier, activating the multiple CPUs and parts inside it and displaying a screen to my eyes. The capsule used eye gestures to open programs after opening the ¡°desktop¡± of the capsule. You selected items by looking at them, and blinking to open them up. The capsule could detect a normal blink versus an interface blink, same with reading items in the capsule versus trying to select something with your eyes. The capsule also, without you knowing it at all, was able to access your brain through your optical nerves, which assisted in the capsule knowing what to do with the interface. I realized neither I nor my father even had ever touched this capsule, never looked into my mother¡¯s interfaces or tried to use this capsule or anything, we just left the capsule there. The thought of this saddened me a bit. I decided to take a poke around her desktop. Sigma Studios did not automatically wipe any capsule data due to a large legal lawsuit that had happened to them a while back revolving around the particular issues, so this was fortunate for me. There were several folders, of which were seemingly related to her in-game company, and then one titled: ¡®Diary¡¯. Now, peeking into other people¡¯s diaries is pretty atrocious, especially if the person was still uh¡­ ¡°living¡±, we¡¯ll call it, as I mentally put air-quotes around living, but I had to read these files. The folder ballooned up, making the folder interface full-screen, and there were just .txt files upon .txt files. I opened a file named ¡®1-11-2020¡¯. This was 5 years ago, with it being 2025 now, of course. The file overtook the file explorer and just opened up a plain notepad file with text in it. Dear Journal, What a whirlwind today has been. A lot of stuff has been going on with the company, so much so that we actually had to fire a couple executives for embezzling money. Imagine that. My board of directors was in unanimous agreement to fire these executives so we did. Fortunately these people weren¡¯t even near the backbone of the company, so it didn¡¯t hurt us a bit. Oh yeah, I thought to myself. I bet nothing is going to ever take down your company even if you¡¯re the last one standing... I¡¯ve been missing Zack and Richard a lot, I wish they would just join me here so I could be with them forever. I don¡¯t know why they want to stay in that world full of disease and anger and¡­ and¡­ and PAIN! Here, everything''s as well as can be in a virtual society and it¡¯s just like real life! I can feel my silk sheets in my bedchamber, the grained wood of an unfinished bow, the hot steel of a sword being forged. I will just never understand them. I wish Richard would just join me here, and Zach so we could just all be one happy family. I thought to myself silently, stone-faced, why didn¡¯t she just come out of the damn capsule instead more to see us? She didn¡¯t need to be at her company every waking moment of every day! I might pop out of the capsule today and surprise them for an hour or two. That was the end of the log. I¡¯m supposing she was pulled away to do other things at that point. This log was early on in the list as well, supposably when she wasn¡¯t as ingrained in the VRMMORPG world as she ended up being. At this point I decided, fuck it. I¡¯m going to play this game and figure out what to do from there. So I closed the journal log and just stared at the journal file window. There were hundreds of journals. I scrolled through them but decided I¡¯d look through them at a later date. I selected the Swordgate VRMMO icon and thought to launch it, and I went blind.The author''s content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. After what seemed like an eternity in the pod, scenery flashed by me, like I was being propelled at an extremely fast speed past the entire game world. A female voice boomed from out of nowhere. ¡°Welcome to Argen, the landmass that Swordgate Online is played on! Here you will quest and adventure with friends, as well as do anything else your mind can dream of!¡± Images flashed by of giant dragons, huge, sprawling cities and monsters of various shapes and monstrosities I¡¯d never even dreamed of thinking about. It was almost too much to bear for my meager senses. Smells, sight, various textures running across my fingers. I wondered how anyone truly did this the first time they logged in. I didn''t remember this being a part of the new character experience with my first character so it was extremely disorienting. After a while of various scenes, my vision was flying in on a small abbey in the middle of a forest, secluded from all civilization. A lone human was standing outside of the abbey, dressed in a burlap set of clothing with thin sandals that had leather straps twisting their way halfway up the calf, so the sandal would stay on. The camera, or, me, at that point, flew down to view the human figure. A deep male voice boomed out from seemingly everywhere once again, like one of those comedic god voices you would see in cartoons on TV or something: ¡°Choose what you will look like, your race, one profession and one perk. You will be able to get all professions eventually, but you will only be able to master to their fullest extent, two professions. Choose wisely.¡± I scrolled through the race list, they had every kind of fantasy race imaginable. Kobolds, Orcs, even Trolls and Ogres, though the Trolls I¡¯m sure were not as large as their fantasy brethren, but they were mighty big, a towering seven and a half feet tall or more, depending on the species of troll. Mountain trolls were the tallest at eight feet. I scrolled through the race menu some more, There were Nephalem, the descendants of Angels, as well as Halflings. Werebears, Werewolves...Were-prettymuchwhateveranimals. This list was pretty amazing, and amazing that the developers actually were able to make this many races with custom fitting armor, not to mention the models for every race. I took my time scrolling through the list, but was leaning toward Giant, Orc, or Nephalem. Or, to be honest, just straight Human, as lowly as it sounded, they came with some good bonuses that sounded pretty good with what I wanted trade-wise, but not profession or combat-wise, so I wasn¡¯t really sure. Race: Human Str: 5 Con: 8 Agi: 5 Int: 5 Per: 5 Cha: 5 Lck: 5 Profession Bonus: Trading +5 Stat Bonus: None Humans were pretty flat but a good base to start with all around. I thought about it, with that trading bonus I could probably make a pretty penny in no time. But that wasn¡¯t my goal. I was planning on actually recovering gemstones farming ore veins for money, as well as ore to sell or use for armor, depending on the class I chose later. I reviewed the Giant race: Race: Giant Str: 9 Con: 8 Agi: 5 Int: 3 Per: 5 Cha: 6 Lck: 5 Profession Bonus: Mining +7 Stat Bonus: Str +1 (Applied to existing stats) Giant seemed to be what I wanted, but I wasn¡¯t quite sure still yet, unfortunately. The Strength bonus was good and the Mining bonus was the highest of what I was looking for, but, I wasn¡¯t sure. I decided to keep scrolling, willing the list up and down looking at the races. However, I saw a race flickering at the bottom of the list I hadn¡¯t seen there the first time. It made me nervous about what I was looking at, since such a solid game shouldn¡¯t be having bugs in its character creation screen that millions of people probably see every day. Race: Naz¡¯catec Str: 7 Con: 7 Agi: 5 Int: 7 Per: 7 Cha: 7 Lck: 9 Profession Bonus: Trading +5, Mining +7, Smithing +3, Archaeology +10 Stat Bonus: Str +2, Lck +4, Int +2, Agi+2, Per +2, Cha +2, Con +2 I looked at the model for the race. It just looked like a¡­ really tan Dwarf, with one arm, the right arm, pretty much being a robotic arm, but developed in the manner of a human arm in bone structure. But it was only bone structure plus cabling for the muscles. It was dressed in actually some really nice clothes, almost looking like a noble.. A purple, flowing no-sleeved shirt with gold trim on it and matching shorts, reaching down to the cyborg- half-dwarf¡¯s knees. I mentally clicked the model and it just made a loud ping noise, which was the noise for ¡°error¡±. Like it couldn¡¯t find the information for the race to tell me its background. However, I was extremely interested in Archaeology, I¡¯d never heard of another game having something so interesting. I love history and everything about it, so this extremely intrigued me. One part of me wanted to collect things and maybe hole them up in a house and keep them forever¡­ another part, my inner greediness just wanted to sell great finds and keep all the money. At this point I was so into the game I had completely forgotten about real life. I could easily see how someone could get so lost in this game, in any VRMMO game. Obviously I had to make my race choice the Naz¡¯catec. I¡¯d be an idiot not to. I considered taking this race being a bannable offense, but I decided to chance it. I thought to myself, ¡®I¡¯m pretty sure the devs have eyes watching the game 24/7, so it¡¯d be weird not to choose this¡­ obviously glitchy but extremely overpowered class...right?¡¯ It was almost comedic to have this chance to be so overpowered in a game. I quickly typed in my character name to be Setari, which was my handle for everything online, and away I went. Immediately I spawned in the forest abbey. I had no profession, no weapons and no armor besides the fancy shirt and shorts I was wearing. Admittedly, my height seemed a bit taller for a dwarf, since they usually were about 4 feet, but I was maybe halfway to five feet, a little more or less. I thought it was very interesting. I looked at my hands and feet, which actually had actual very nice leather boots on them! Something I hadn¡¯t noticed on the character creation screen. I heard the crunching of gravel behind me, and turned around. ¡°I welcome you to our humble abbey¡­¡± the man opened his eyes and looked at me. ¡°I...er¡­ what are you?¡± The NPC asked. Boy, I didn¡¯t expect this kind of response. Then again, it¡¯s to be expected from a class that apparently wasn¡¯t supposed to be in the game. ¡°I dunno, apparently a Naz¡¯catec Dwarf? Or just a Naz¡¯catec, I suppose.¡± I shrugged at him. ¡°One moment.¡± The NPC¡¯s eyes glazed over to a creepy white as he just stood there and did nothing. I decided, fuck it, I¡¯m gonna look around. So I started to move around him, when I was frozen in place. I¡¯m sure I¡¯m going to learn a lesson about choosing buggy races right now. Chapter Three I was frozen for twenty minutes, in-game, anyway. Outside the game, since the game used a time compression system, I might¡¯ve been stuck for hours. But, there was nobody to check on me, and my UI was frozen, so I was unable to log out. I was just stuck in a half-walk, as unrealistic as it was. I assumed this was the kind of thing that didn¡¯t happen often. Suddenly, a wolf-like man, a werewolf, it could be said, appeared in front of me and started speaking. I focused on the werewolf and above his head it said GD Fenrir. Of course. ¡°How did you get this race?¡± A male voice emitted from the wolf¡¯s mouth, seeming like it was speaking with its mouth moving in accordance with the words. Color me impressed. ¡°It was in the race list. I wasn¡¯t sure what it was, but it was kind of glitchy in the list, like, flickering. I picked it and out came this dwarf with¡­¡± I waved my pretty much cybernetic arm at the wolf, ¡°this arm with a mildly Dwarven body I guess?¡± I shrugged at the wolf, who I gathered by now was a Game Duke, basically a lower level admin in the game. ¡°That was how the race appeared to you? A slightly taller Dwarf with a cybernetic arm?¡± The GD pressed the question. ¡°Uh¡­¡± I waved my arm again. ¡°Obviously?¡± Clearly either this GD was AI or something, I didn¡¯t think a person would ask that kind of question. Unless my appearance to him was different than I saw my character as, but I¡¯m not sure what purpose that would serve. I doubted that was the case. ¡°No, I meant, that¡¯s how it appeared in the list? A flickering name? Of Naz¡¯catec?¡± He had obviously inspected me to check the race. ¡°Yes, that is what showed up in the list. Alright, listen, am I in any trouble or something or what? Because I¡¯d really like to get to playing the game.¡± ¡°No you¡¯re not. We just had an issue a hacking attempt from this exact capsule, and it seems it inserted this race as you were making your character. For what reason we¡¯re not sure, but, we¡¯ll see what happens, I guess. We can¡¯t force you to change your race since it¡¯s against our terms of service and could lead to some issues with your capsule, but if you ever do want to change your race, just reach out and we¡¯ll get it taken care of. For all intents and purposes, this is a valid race.¡± I thought to myself, ¡®Yeah, I¡¯m really going to change my race from this beast of a character, hah!¡¯ The GD released me from holding me in the air, and I tripped at my forward momentum and fell on my stomach, my face almost slamming into the dirt. I got up and dusted myself off quickly. ¡°Apologies.¡±You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author. ¡°It¡¯s not a problem. However, do I get anything for changing a race to an existing one instead of staying a Naz¡¯catec?¡± I asked, inquisitively. I supposed they might give a large sum of gold or something. Which, as I mentioned before, was a 1:1 ratio to Credits at that moment. ¡°Since you were the only one we¡¯ve discovered that has created a Naz¡¯catec, not yet. We may be offering a reward soon, but for now, we are just going to observe.¡± The GD scoffed, and said, ¡°However, since you have found a bug in our system, I am permitted to give you a box full of items that may assist you on your journey as a reward for finding a bug.¡± A prompt appeared in front of me. You have received: [Epic Loot Chest] Via courtesy of: GD Fenrir I was extremely surprised at this turn of events. Chests aren¡¯t typically awarded straight to people, typically they¡¯re found out in the world as actual chests. I wasn¡¯t even aware chests were actually able to be items. My eyebrows must have been raised in surprise at the prompt, because the GD had this to say: ¡°I see your surprise at the item. We do give item chests that spawn items with items inside them to give to players. Enjoy your short-term rewards.¡± and with that, he disappeared in a poof of smoke as he walked away. I immediately opened the chest and got another window appearing in front of my eyes: What I didn¡¯t see was the grin spread across the wolf-like face, as he faded into obscurity and out of this world, as I opened the chest. Chapter Four You received: [Brown Pony] Mount [Selection of Weapons and Armor] [Timer] [5,000 Gold Pieces] Well it was nice to have a mount in the beginning of the game, I wouldn¡¯t be hoofing it everywhere. I ¡°used¡± the pony, and instead of actually spawning a horse, it popped into a menu that pulled up in front of me where I could pull it up and summon it from there. Right now the ¡°Collections¡± menu was pretty empty besides my pony, but I¡¯m sure that will change eventually. I minimized the menu back down to its little icon in the bottom right hand corner. I was more concerned with the Selection of Weapons item and the Timer. Why was a simple timer epic rarity? The timer just looked like a normal egg timer in my hand but it went up to 10 seconds, that was it. ¡°Well, that was certainly more than expected for my - ¡° the NPC behind me I had completely forgotten about had begun talking, but I turned the timer to ten seconds, and then right before my eyes it reset like I had never turned it. ¡°Well that was certainly more than expected for my day,¡± the NPC said, finishing its statement. I looked at the timer in amazement. It¡­ it turns back time! Oh good god, why is an item this overpowered in the game at all?! I feel like I should not have this. Why would he give this to me though? Was it just RNG loot from the chest? That¡¯s what most chests have is RNG loot¡­ My thoughts raced through my head a mile a minute as I struggled to make sense of having this item. Then, I had an idea.I turned back the dial ten seconds. Then another ten seconds. Then another ten seconds. GD Fenrir appeared in front of me. Then another ten seconds. Then another ten seconds.Then another chest of items appeared in my inventory. I waited ten seconds, then turned back time again. And got another chest. I was sure either this was localized time travel within maybe a mile or less, or everyone in the game was having ¡°lag¡± at this point. I didn¡¯t really care when I could potentially get a full set of awesome armor for little to nothing along with awesome weapons and it could be blamed on server issues. My dwarven-esque beard split into a toothy grin. I repeated this overpowered item¡¯s move until I had a full inventory of chests (roughly 200 chests) and then put the [Timer] back in my inventory. I then walked away from the NPC talking behind me, and sat down next to a tree on the outskirts of the clearing and then sat down and began to take out another one of the chests from my inventory. The next chest was a physical item in front of me, same as the last one, but bigger, maybe a foot by a foot by a foot in size. The first one just was palm-sized, for some reason. I¡¯m not questioning it. I opened up the chest and out popped of the chest in a cartoonish fashion, some items that landed on the ground. In this chest happened to apparently be a polearm, a helmet and some other equippable trinket for the [Trinket] slot in my UI. I picked up the Polearm and inspected it: [Dwarven Crafted Masterwork Polearm] Damage 213-316 Str +10 Con +20Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road. Lck+1 I shrugged. It¡¯d probably get a good price on the street or the auction house, if this game had one. A lot of games were tending toward not adding auction houses or places where you could give an item to someone to sell, but I¡¯m sure someone probably put one in place if the game devs didn¡¯t. The other chests were obviously worth a fortune if they had items of this quality in them, but I feel like the Timer item was a special one for me, since the chests were different icons in my inventory at the time versus the ones I now had a whole smack-load of. I picked up the helmet and inspected it. [Tiger¡¯s Helmet of Speed] +200 Movement Speed +10 Str +5 Agi +2 Con Just a rare item, nothing new for a veteran of MMORPGs, but a good starting item for me. I equipped the item and immediately felt a surge of strength and speed. Unfortunately for me, I had roughly two hundred chests in my inventory that I really did not want to look through. Fortunately, I had an idea for that, but first wanted to check out this tiny trinket, maybe it was useful for me. I had already stowed the polearm in my inventory, so I picked up the trinket on the ground. [Unidentified Trinket] + ?? Agi +?? Con The trinket was unfortunately unidentified, but unidentified items rolled random values from 1-500 for their stat values on the items, so it could be a hit or a miss. These values were also determined at the time of identification, and also how strong the identification spell used on them was. Unfortunately I¡¯d probably have to find someone who has a powerful enough identification spell to ID this beauty. The trinket was actually a gem, which means it could be slotted into a weapon or armor to add these stats to that piece of armor or weapon, obviously. I gathered up everything and put it in my inventory. I looked at what my starter bag was, in fact. [Pack of the Traveler] -50% pack weight on user +10% Movement Speed 250 inventory slots This was honestly a pretty nifty bag, if a little overkill on the slots. To be quite honest, I was expecting to run into a ¡°You have no more bag space¡± error while getting those chests, but it looks like I¡¯ll be fine for a little while. But first I¡¯m going to have to level up before getting out of this starter area maybe? I walked over to the starting NPC and began talking to him: ¡°Hey, you have anything that needs to be done around here?¡± I asked him. ¡°Nope.¡± The NPC replied. He was just sweeping the road of rocks and various other debris, despite it just being a dirt road. ¡°Uh, really? Cause¡­ you¡¯re the starting tutorial person right?¡± ¡°Yes. And no. Typically people just start running away into the world by themselves, so I stopped offering my services to them as a quest-giver long ago. I just upkeep this small monastery now, along with a few of my cleric brothers and some of the Cleric classes that stop by every now and again, knights and adventurers, and the like.¡± ¡°What comes with being a Cleric?¡± I asked, looking for information on the class. Since in SwordGate, you don¡¯t choose a class, you visit a class trainer and ¡°trial¡± the class for ten levels, and after that you can decide to make it your permanent class or not. There were some VRMMOs of a much lesser quality that let you level up multiple classes, but SwordGate was not one of them, that was for sure. As far as I knew, anyway. ¡°The basic healing spell in the beginning, as well as a starter kit of a mace and shield. We actually have all kinds of weapons to give out, but people just choose the stereotypical mace and start bashing things.¡± He shrugged. ¡°It¡¯s just how it goes, I guess.¡± ¡°Hm. Say I was interested in becoming a Cleric, do you anything a little more¡­ powerful as gear and weapons go?¡± My CHA was rolling its way into town like a badass cowboy on a nightmare steed. I figured Cleric wouldn¡¯t be bad to get levels in. Plus every class did stay at ten levels after you leveled it up to that at least, so it would be worth it just in case I wanted to switch back to that class in the future. My Luck probably played a part here as well. ¡°We¡­ do not release those relics to the public,¡± he said, pausing, looking like he was thinking. ¡°Lightly.¡± He paused to think some more, stroking his brown beard. ¡°Come with me.¡± I stepped toward the NPC, a smile splitting my dwarven-esque features as he started off at a brisk walk, taking his broom with him. I followed him, immensely curious as to what I might get, and if this was connected in any way to my race programming. Probably not since persuasion usually depended on CHA, which slightly determined how you looked to other people in-game, so. But, it could be! Chapter Five The Cleric immediately led me down into the depths of the abbey, down staircases and staircases. It seemed like we were walking for an extremely long time, maybe for thirty minutes or a little more. We ended up coming to a whole wall full of giant, ornate vault doors. They were roughly the size of an extremely large bull elephant, so just about 14 feet tall and it was pretty round, if not perfectly round, so the same all around pretty much. The Cleric knocked and extremely odd series of knocks with both of his hands and feet, kicking the door but having the door put out different tones of sound depending on where he hit with his hands and feet. It almost sounded melodic.. It took a few seconds for him to strike all the correct places, then he whipped out his mace he had hanging at his belt and took it with both hands and struck the middle of the door with the mace, dead center. The door reverberated with the smashing noise it made, and it echoed down the dark, dimly lit hallways. The large door opened, gliding on smooth, well-oiled hinges. I would have thought it¡¯d groan open with how big the door was, but, nope.The door swung all the way to the wall. The Cleric stepped inside, completely enveloped by the darkness of the room. I moved forward to enter the room as well, but all of a sudden, a blinding light enveloped me. A strange voice entered my mind. I thought for a second that my pod had caught a virus, but completely dismissed the thought the second I thought of it. ¡°Do you wish to be a carrier of the holy Light? A healer of the sick, a helper of the meager and poor? Do you wish to become a Cleric?¡± I heard it ask me in my mind. It wasn¡¯t so much an outside force as it was just placed inside my head, like my own mental thoughts asking me this question. Thought manipulation? I¡¯d have to look into it. I thought to myself, Yes, I do wish to be a Cleric. My vision came back and next to my experience bar, to the left of it, at the bottom of my vision, there was tiny text where there was none before. It said in golden, raised letters: Cleric: And to the right was my level. It just said ¡°Lv. 0¡± also in golden, raised letters. I could see now, and see into the vault. It must have been cloaked in shadow to people who were not clerics, and thus would blindly stumble their way inside. Inside the vault was lit, just again by torches. In the vault were also small, glowing motes of just¡­ light. Floating around. Particularly grouped around a pedestal in the center of the room. The other Cleric was standing there, waiting for me. ¡°Welcome to the order, Brother.¡± The Cleric said. I could actually see his name above his head now, his name was Brother John. Previously to me before it just said a generic ¡°Cleric¡±, which I did think was odd but didn¡¯t question it. The motes of light moved out of my way as I moved toward the pedestal. The motes glowed sharply the closer I approached the pedestal. What looked to be on the pedestal was a set of armor, sitting on a crude wooden mannequin. The armor had a base of rough looking chainmail to it, but it was plate armor, no doubt about it. Just the texture of the armor was chainmail like but covered in...scales, maybe? ¡°Is this dragonscale armor?¡± I asked my new Brother of the Light. ¡°Close. The scales are from beasts long gone from this world. Related to dragons, but not dragons. They had six legs, and were very volatile in personality as well as territory and mating, as well as talking to us humans or other species. They had faces like dragons, and it¡¯s very likely that dragons descended from these quasi-dragons. They had extremely thick, but pliable and durable scales. These scales were great for producing armor that was as moveable in as leather, but protected like plate. However, our Cleric-Knight brothers went farther and created plate armor from these scales, to be extremely protected from danger. These scales even protect from any kind of flames, even Helfire. We called the beasts ¡°Hurldrangurs¡±. An odd name but a fitting one, since they actually threw fireballs from their mouths by snapping their heads to and fro, but always hitting their target.¡± I had read about Helfire. Most people think the word ¡°Helfire¡± is a typo, but in the game¡¯s lore, instead of ¡°hell¡± being a place where demons roam and stuff like that, they¡¯re different names for the generic versions of ¡°heaven¡± and ¡°hell¡±. The game isn¡¯t too ¡°viking¡± influenced but ¡°Hel¡± is the opposite of a viking¡¯s Valhalla, so it constantly gets mixed up, but the developers of the game just took ¡°Hel¡± and made it their own. Supposedly there¡¯s supposed to be an expansion revolving around Hel and Anirus, their version of ¡°heaven¡± and where Cleric¡¯s ¡°powers¡± are supposed to come from. Of course gods make their occasional appearance in the game as well. The gods in the game were, oddly based on the elements, those being Earth, Water, Fire and Air, along with Dark and Light also being conflicting gods who had events run about them much more often than the Elemental gods did, or so I read online about the game.If you come across this story on Amazon, it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it. ¡°Helfire is extremely powerful, isn¡¯t it?¡± I asked John. ¡°Yes, it is, which makes this armor all the more valuable. You may have this set of armor¡­¡± my inner greed thoughts were spinning madly at the thought of getting this set of armor. I could wear it and sell it later when I out-leveled it, surely. ¡°But it must be the first and last set of armor you ever wear in this realm.¡± Ouch! That came with a steep price. Still¡­ ¡°But uh, what if I want to change classes later?¡± I asked him. Class changing was still a mechanic, though slight, for new players like myself. ¡°Inspect the armor.¡± He told me. So, I took a piece off the mannequin and did so. I took a glove. [Gloves of Hurldrangur Scale] +100 STR +90 AGI +125 CON + 100 INT +50 CHR +10 LCK +75 PER Set (2): 2 pieces of this armor grant the user increased power, reducing cooldowns on various skills by 30%. Every piece after this decreases cooldown by an additional 3%. Also grants ability to scale walls using gloves and boots, if the wearer has them. Set (3): Grants increased health pool. Set (4): Grants a magical shield that can absorb up to 1,000,000 damage. Set (5): Grants a magical shield that can absorb 2,000,000 damage. Set (6): Grants [Hurldrangur Flame Lance] skill. Set (7): Grants [Hurldrangur Nature Mortar] skill. Set (8): Grants [Hurldrangur Dark Flamethrower] skill. Gloves forged in the flames of various elemental Hurldrangurs, this armor is impervious to ninety-nine percent of things found on this planet. The only thing that could pierce this armor is a lance from an angel of Anirus. And then at the bottom, in large, golden text: NOTICE: THIS ARMOR SOUL-BINDS TO THE USER AND SCALES WITH LEVEL. I marveled in awe at this armor. This was probably unprecedented in the history of this game¡¯s world. This armor was thousands of years old, but it still gleamed like new in the motes of light hovering around it. It was also sharply embossed with orange swirls and flowing lines on the armor as well, on top of the Hurldrangur scales. The soulbind notice was actually no big deal though. In other games, soulbound just meant that you wouldn¡¯t lose the armor on death from monsters or player killers, which there were a scarce amount of in this game. PKers, that is. But you also could not sell the armor. You could destroy it for no return as well in most games, some you could get a small material return which you could actually sell, but otherwise... ¡°Does all of the armor have stats like this?¡± I asked John. ¡°Eh, more or less depending on the armor piece.¡± He answered. ¡°But, as you know, this is extremely rare armor. Few, if any other complete sets of armor are still in existence. Some have fallen away due to care not being taken to polishing and cleaning the armor. This is one of the only sets left in existence. That being said¡­¡± he paused. Somewhat menacingly, I thought, but didn¡¯t say a word. ¡°I will award you this armor piece you are holding, on second thought, if you can slay the dragon Neftngiz, at the top of Red Mountain.¡± I looked at him blankly. Did I pass the required time to snatch the armor and run out of the room? Why did I ask so many questions?! Now I¡¯d only get one piece of armor for slaying one measly dragon! I quickly had an idea. I brought out my Timer and attempted to turn it back ten seconds. John just stood there, slightly smiling at me, as he had been for the last few minutes. And then he said, ¡°Magical artifacts do not work on this floor of the abbey.¡± And then he waved his hand and the Timer, with a small popping noise, disappeared from my hand and went back into my inventory as I saw a notification flash on the bottom right of my vision. ¡°Crap.¡± I muttered to myself. ¡°Alright, I¡¯ll take your quest and kick the fuck out of this dragon,¡± I said, angry with myself for not taking the armor sooner and learning the lore later. ¡°Tsk, swears are unbecoming of an up and coming Cleric such as yourself.¡± he snatched the gauntlet back from me and placed it reverently on the mannequin again. ¡°Red Mountain is months away though! How the hell am I supposed to get there?¡± Cleric John started pushing me out of the vault room. I guess the AI for the Cleric realized its mistake and realized it was about to give away a very powerful set of armor. Oh well, I¡¯ll earn it the old fashioned way, with hard work¡­ and a lot of blood, sweat, and tears! Chapter Six Cleric John pushed me out of the vault and we both made our way up to the surface and back outside the abbey. ¡°Well, good luck with your quest, young Cleric. Hopefully I¡¯ll see you again soon in a few months!¡± he said. He went back to sweeping the sidewalk directly in front of the abbey. ¡°Eh, hold on a second. Can you do something about this? Some illusion magic or something?¡± I waved my cybernetic arm. ¡°Oh, yes, that would draw a lot of undue attention wouldn¡¯t it?¡± He waved his hand at me and I saw a square icon with a flexing arm on it appear underneath my health bar, as well as an illusion of the arm that was supposed to be my body. I now had for all intents and purposes, an actual arm. The cybernetic arm could feel as well, so it wasn¡¯t like I was lacking a sensing arm or anything. The arm looked and felt like a normal uh, Naz¡¯catec arm. I turned my gaze toward the buff I just received and a small window hovered underneath it: [Permanent Illusion] Expires in: ¡Þ It just had an infinity sign next to the buff, implying it would never expire. ¡°Thanks, I appreciate it.¡± ¡°Well, the abbey appreciates some coin for our services¡­¡± John raised his eyebrow at me and smiled, his beard raising and the smile reaching his eyes. What a cheesy smile, what the heck. I reached into my bag and grabbed a 100 gold piece and tossed it to him. ¡°Keep the change!¡± I barked and I walked away. He looked mildly surprised as I walked away, surprised to have gotten such a large amount of money. The abbey was situated in a small valley surrounded by woods. There seemed to not be any immediate monsters in the area that I could tell, so I just followed the trail up to the top of the hill to see what was over it and to map my path. Speaking of map¡­ I thought, I mentally commanded the UI to show the local map, and it brought up a translucent map over my vision. I could see what was generally around me for about 400 feet it seemed on my map, and all I saw was the path and the path cutting through the forest. I was getting nowhere fast. Though, I forgot I had my [Brown Pony] mount. I went ahead and opened up my collections window by willing it open and summoned my pony. A good looking pony trotted out from the trees, saddle equipped and everything.Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings. I hopped on the pony and sped off. I looked at the boost the pony gave me as a buff: +100% Move Speed Cannot be stunned. I thought the ¡°cannot be stunned¡± thing was a bit much, but I had never had a mount before, so I thought it might be normal. I opened up my mount¡¯s user interface as well: Brown Pony Level: 1 EXP: 1%/100% Skills: None Equipped: Basic Brown Leather Saddle, Basic Brown Leather Neck Cover, Basic Iron Horseshoes I was surprised to find out that I could get different items for my mount, and that I could level it up. If I had to guess without opening up the web interface for the game and looking at the forums, leveling increased mount speed, and the only way to get the mount¡¯s EXP up was probably to ride it. So! I hauled my mount¡¯s ass up that hill and got to the top of it. I Was able to see for quite a while around me, and I decided to take a break in the game since I was apparently feeling hungry. I immediately got off my pony and led it to a tree with some low hanging branches and tied it up. Then sat down on the opposite side of the tree and got some cheese and bread out of my pack, courtesy of the game devs spawning me with bread and cheese. I took a bite of the cheese. It tasted like cheese, as to be expected. Pretty much hard tack for food at this point. I inspected the cheese and the bread. Plains Cow Cheese. If eaten for 5 seconds, boosts HP recovery by 10% per minute Plains Wheat Bread. If eaten for 5 seconds, boosts HP recovery by 5% per minute. I had also some waterskins, three half full of water. This was the first time I actually looked at the contents in my bag, but alas it was just some food and water, which was fine. I took one half-full (half-empty?) waterskin out of my bag and inspected it. Pure Spring Water. Increases Mana Recovery by 10% per minute. I ate my tiny meal in peace, listening to the birds chirp. After I finished eating attached my pack to my horse and fell asleep under the tree for a little while. I¡¯d have that armor before I knew it. Chapter Seven I woke up a few hours later still underneath the tree. I could appreciate the lack of ants and other small forest bugs. However, as I noticed now, it was nighttime. My stomach rumbled again. I should probably get to an actual inn. I¡¯ve barely made it two miles away from the abbey much less closer to a town, I thought to myself. I packed up my kit that was laying on the ground, mostly just my bag, secured it to the pony and saddled up and went on my way. For quite a while I listened to the birds chirp and just trotted my pony down the road. The road had to lead somewhere so I wasn¡¯t too worried about where I was going. I just slowly trotted down the road for what seemed like a couple hours. I may have nodded off in the saddle a couple times due to the leisurely pace and such, but nobody bothered me. I felt like that stood as a testament to how large this world really was, that I could nod off for maybe 30 minutes while riding my horse, auto-pathing down the road, deep in the wilderness where there may or may not be people, and be completely fine, PvP fines notwithstanding. I took a minute to really explore my UI, now that I had a minute away from opening chests and weird NPCs and really cool armor. There was: An EXP bar at the bottom of my screen for my class, right in the bottom middle. Not too heavy-handed for placement, just a thin bar filling with green EXP. I currently just had a 75% full EXP bar for opening those chests, so I guess you get EXP when you find treasure. Which totally means I could probably power level up to at least ten if not fifteen if the EXP didn¡¯t scale with my level, which to be honest, most games nowadays did have scaling EXP levels from monsters and quests and such, so¡­ I had a few buttons in the bottom right hand corner of my screen. Character, Inventory, Collectables, Professions, and Skills. I had a feeling more would be added as time went on. I opened up the Professions window by willing it open, but it was an empty window with a background image of a fountain pen and some lined paper. The window was empty, besides that. On top of my EXP bar was my Skill bar. Right now there were ten slots, with the first one having an ¡°auto-attack¡± skill on it and the next having a ¡°Heal¡± skill. I glanced at the skill so the tooltip for the skill would come up. Skill: Heal Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation. Speaking of HP, I didn¡¯t even know how many points of Constitution equaled my current stats. I pulled up my character window, which I probably should have just done in the first place. Setari Level 1 Naz¡¯catec Cleric (75%/100%) Str: 7 (22) Con: 7 (15) Agi: 7 (12) Int: 7 (10) Per: 7 Cha: 7 Lck: 9 Health and Mana values are hidden by default, enable these in the options menu. Additional stats are not listed, such as Movement Speed, Vampirism, and Armor, etc. Stats boosted from armor are listed in the parenthesis. My clothes (chestpiece, pants, et cetera) were plain noob clothes as well as having 4 empty trinket slots and 5 empty ring slots, an empty necklace slot and an empty cloak slot, as well as not having a belt or gloves for the moment. I was surprised they didn¡¯t list the additional off-stats, but figured those probably weren¡¯t on a lot of pieces of armor and I just got lucky with that rare piece. However, I was extremely curious about the unidentified Trinket, but unfortunately the text color of the trinket wasn¡¯t indicative of the actual rarity, it¡¯s just how the unidentified items were colored, otherwise I would have thought I¡¯d had an in-between rarity (between Legendary and Epic) item or something. Previously having looked up some beginner information on the forums was already paying off and making me look like less of a noobie, mentally anyway. To nobody in-particular, I thought to myself. I saw a stick standing out of the ground ahead of me through all of my translucent windows in my vision. I willed all the windows to close and before pulling up to what looked to be a signpost giving directions, opened my options menu and made sure all notifications were minimized, including chat notifications. Didn¡¯t want those popping up in the middle of a fight and killing me with ¡°You¡¯ve leveled up!¡± notifications. I had watched many a video of people dying to those things. Not me, no sir! I pulled up to the sign and read the two signs, judging by my map, both going opposite directions to the north-east and north-west. The north-west sign read ¡®Alakar¡¯, and the north-east sign said ¡®Eunuch¡¯. Who names an entire city ¡®Eunuch?!¡¯ I thought to myself. This was a strange game indeed. However, one thing I had learned about the game from browsing the website and the forums was that most cities were player-run. NPCs may have set up shop in the cities, but the cities were ruled by the players. NPC-run cities were very rare, but tended to be in better shape than the Player-run cities. But the Player-run cities definitely had more of a homely feel to them, whereas the NPC-run cities were more orderly and defined. I turned my mount towards the city of Eunuch and spurred my pony onwards. Chapter Eight If I had to guess, Eunuch was a player-run city judging by the name. I arrived at Eunuch a few hours later and was greeted with this message upon entering the gates of the city:
You have arrived at the Player-run city of Eunuch. Your elapsed time in the game in real world hours is: 18 hours, 36 minutes. Please leave your capsule now to eat and take a break!
If you do not exit the game in five minutes, you will be booted from the servers and not allowed to log back in for a minimum of three hours. Sigma Studios keeps a running record of people who do not log out on time! Fuck. I had to exit the game. I probably should have went and made some food, anyway. I willed the menu to appear and I selected the logout button. The menu disappeared and a 20 second countdown began in front of me in large, embossed and bold letters. Someone ran up to me, however. ¡°Sir! Someone asked me to give this to you!¡± A small child, probably a street urchin by the looks of their clothes, held out a clean letter stamped with a wax seal to hold it closed. ¡°Wha-wha-what?¡± I stuttered out, my mind already relaxing. I wasn¡¯t prepared to be interrupted. I took the letter from the kid and tossed it into my bag right before I logged out back to the desktop interface of the VRCapsule. I opened my eyes and popped the lid on the capsule and removed the attachments from the capsule that I had attached to me. I stepped out of the capsule and it struck me: how did my mother stay inside the capsule for those super huge lengths of time? She would be in there for a couple days, sometimes three. A lot of times we had to force the emergency ejection on the capsule so we could pull her from the game and have her eat and drink something, as much as she resented us for it, she knew we meant well. But now wasn¡¯t the time for thoughts of my mother. She was probably sleeping in some bed in SwordGate right now, with no thoughts of me or her family now to distract her from running her company. I walked into the kitchen and made myself a turkey sandwich with tomato on a plate with some salt and vinegar chips and sat down at the dining table, which I was accompanied by several empty dining chairs around the large table. It reminded me of the day she told my father and I there was a chance of her being booted out of the game. I zoned out while chewing a bite of the sandwich and remembered exactly that entire day. I shook myself out of it and I ate my sandwich really quickly, almost inhaling it and hopped stepped to toss the paper plate away and had a knock at the door. Now, I barely had friends in real life much less anyone who knew me after graduating high school, so I was curious about who it would be. Luckily we had a peephole on the door, so I looked through it. I couldn¡¯t exactly tell who it was since they were looking away from the door, and tried to decide if I wanted to open the door for this person or not. It could have been an acquaintance from school, but I hadn¡¯t been to a school in quite a while due to graduating early. Stay in school and graduate early, kids.If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it. I decided to open the door. What was the harm in it anyway? The door swung inwards towards me and immediately the person turned around. The person turned around and turned out to be an old acquaintance from high school, as well I had thought earlier. The guy¡¯s name was Kit. Fair enough guy, and nice enough. Tall, brown hair, blue eyes. Most generic human being you¡¯ll ever see. Never gave me any trouble, hung out with him at school multiple times. ¡°Zack!¡± Kit exclaimed. He peered behind me. ¡°Parents gone for the week or something?¡± I forgot that I had told nobody of my parents¡¯ deaths. ¡°Uh, yeah, something like that.¡± I scratched the back of my head. ¡°What¡¯didja need, Kit?¡± I asked, mildly impatient to hop back into the world of SwordGate. I realized what I was thinking and told myself to relax, spending time with an actual person isn¡¯t going to kill me. I could use a break anyway. ¡°Mind if I come in?¡± he asked. ¡°Oh, ah, no, please.¡± I stepped aside and he entered the house. ¡°Damn, man your house is big. Anyway, I came to ask you a question, which is, do you play SwordGate?¡± ¡°I actually just started today,¡± I paused. ¡°I uh¡­ it¡¯s been an interesting time for me in the game, really.¡± ¡°Rats. I knew you had a capsule and just wanted to see if I could get a referral to net me a rare mount in the game. Ah well, if only I had shown up a bit sooner today.¡± ¡°Actually, I think I played overnight or something. I started, from what the game told me before I logged out a little bit ago, 18 hours ago, just about.¡± I shrugged. ¡°Holy-¡± He thought for a second as if recalling something. ¡°Dude, the in-game maximum time is 5 hours. How did you get around it?¡± ¡°Uh, well, long story, but the game actually booted me when I went to Eunuch, or rather, stepped inside the gates and got the welcome message and stuff. I actually don¡¯t know what¡¯s letting me stay in the game that long, and I never actually looked up the time limits, so, I didn¡¯t really care.¡± We stepped into the living room and sat on separate couches. ¡°Mind if I take a look at the pod?¡± I could see his eyes gleaming, but he was kind enough to ask permission. ¡°Nah, go ahead, I don¡¯t care. I hate the thing anyway.¡± ¡°Dude, this is the second-to-latest generation of pod. How can you hate it?¡± ¡°Again, long story.¡± I sighed. ¡°But yeah, feel free to poke around. I¡¯ll get us some drinks.¡± I walked to the kitchen and grabbed two glasses out of the cup cupboard and grabbed some cola from the fridge and poured some into two glasses, and walked back to him in the living room. He was inspecting something on the underside of the pod. The pod was slightly lifted up off of the ground, he had moved it himself. ¡°Dude, what¡¯s this thing?¡± he gestured at something underneath the pod. I went over and lowered myself onto the floor on the opposite side of the pod.There was a bit of plastic, looking like an old USB flash drive sticking out of the center bottom of the pod, with a blinking red light, breaking the smoothness of the back/bottom of the pod¡¯s pill-like exterior. ¡°Huh. I never noticed that there. To be honest I never actually looked at the backside of the pod. Let me get in and access the pod¡¯s hard drive and see if I can see what it is.¡± I got up and in front of the pod and stepped inside and closed the lid so the desktop interface came up. It was a basic PC interface so it was a basic PC desktop really, with a taskbar at the bottom and everything. Some things will never change. I opened up the Computer Explorer and saw the flash drive in there, next to the pod¡¯s hard drive. This thing had twenty terabytes of space and had blazing fast read and write speeds upon further inspection. I backed out of inspecting it though and opened up the flash drive. ¡°I see the flash drive, I¡¯m opening it¡­¡± Immediately I was prompted with just a blank text box in a window on the screen. ¡°I think it¡¯s passworded.¡± ¡°Do you know the password?¡± Kit asked me. I thought a bit and on a whim decided to try my first name, and it worked. ¡°Yeah, apparently. One second, let me browse through this thing.¡± I looked through the files. There were some file folders named ¡°TIME¡±, ¡°DATE¡±, ¡°ACCOUNTS¡±, and a .txt file labeled ¡°Zack.txt¡±. I opened the file named Zack.txt and it ballooned up into a normal text file, filled with gibberish, or what seemed to be gibberish. However, at the top of the file on a separate line, was a date. The date was yesterday. Chapter Nine I couldn¡¯t understand. This file was made yesterday and was filled with plain gibberish. It was letters only, however, not unicode characters or even something easy to translate like Wingdings VII where I could just change the font to a readable thing. No, this was encoded. I opened up a translation website for encoded files and uploaded the file to the website to decode straight from the USB stick, but the website ended up telling me it couldn¡¯t decode it. It must have been some weird cipher that someone used. ¡°There¡¯s some file in here with my name on it, but I can¡¯t read it.¡± ¡°Whaddaya mean you can¡¯t read it?! It¡¯s just a file right?¡± ¡°Yeah, it¡¯s a text file, but the text file is full of gibberish.¡± ¡°Ah, okay. I¡¯m assuming you tried a -¡± ¡°Yep.¡± ¡°I might be able to help you with that then, there¡¯s a few people I know who work on stuff like this. E-mail me the file and I¡¯ll get it translated for you.¡± ¡°Alright.¡± Kit told me his e-mail and I attached it to an e-mail and sent it off to him. ¡°Okay, it¡¯s done.¡± I opened up the pod and got out and shut it down and went back and sat on the couch. Kit sat on the other couch where he was before, grabbing the orange soda in a cup before sitting and taking a loud slurp out of it. ¡°Thanks for the drink.¡± ¡°Now I remember why I never had you over!.¡± We both chuckled. ¡°So, do you play SwordGate as well?¡± ¡°Yeah, I make a bit of money on it. Enough for myself and my apartment at least, with some change to spare. You know, SwordGate even has player-run investment firms that invest your gold and stuff into businesses that are doing well and pay you dividends and stuff like that.¡± ¡°So, basically a fantasy stock market.¡± I took a gulp of my soda. ¡°Eh, yeah, basically, but less losing money and more making money.¡± ¡°Well, stocks don¡¯t come without their risks.¡± ¡°It¡¯s true,¡± he replied, ¡°but you¡¯re losing virtual money in a virtual world versus losing real money. And even though you can convert your gold to real money, you¡¯re still just using virtual money, so there¡¯s no losses.¡± ¡°Yeah, true enough.¡± We both sipped our soda in silence for a minute or two, relaxing on the couches.The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. ¡°So, where are your parents?¡± he asked me. ¡°Ah¡­ uh¡­¡± I stuttered. I had expected the question, just not right then. ¡°On a business trip. They¡¯re always running around and stuff all over the world, so. They¡¯re basically lawyers for an international firm. They know a lot of languages and stuff.¡± I fibbed my way out of answering with ¡°They¡¯re dead and my mother is stuck in the game mentally and runs one of the biggest conglomerates in SwordGate!¡± because every time I¡¯ve told someone that, which has been quite a few times due to me being an idiot, they try to cozy up to me for money, and it¡¯s not happening again. I¡¯ve had to burn way too many bridges because of that slip-up. ¡°Ah, so they¡¯re gonna be gone for a while then.¡± Kit took a larger gulp of his soda. He set down his soda on the side table next to him. ¡°Well, I play as well. I¡¯ve been reaching out to people I used to know in high school to network in-game. You never know who¡¯s going to become the next billionaire in SwordGate.¡± ¡°Yeah, and whoever becomes a billionaire in Swordgate is pretty much a billionaire in real life, generally.¡± ¡°Yeeeep.¡± He sighed. ¡°One day someone will make something huge, and I¡¯ll get in on it and make a ton of money.¡± ¡°I do have a question though. I was given a quest to, er, for lack of a better phrase, get some armor in general and I was hoping to recruit a few people. But we have to kill a dragon.¡± ¡°Eh, where at though? The world is full of dragons.¡± He looked at me skeptically. ¡°Red Mountain. The dragon Neftngiz.¡± ¡°Oh, dude, that guy is cake. There are raids being launched against him all the time. The dragon is just level seventy. He¡¯s not hard, really. A good source of loot as well for newbies such as yourself. What did you even roll as?¡± ¡°I spawned in front of an abbey so I just decided to be a Cleric, which also ties into the quest I got, generally.¡± I shrugged, mildly in defeat at my own laziness of exploring the world without a class. ¡°Ah, yeah healers are pretty high in demand, or rather classes that can heal in general, really. So you should have no problem finding a group. Everyone wants to be the hero and be on the front lines of the war, so to speak, so you¡¯ll be good.¡± He grabbed his glass and took another swig of soda out of the glass. ¡°Ah, good to know. I do have another question though. Say I hypothetically came across some information on the internet on how to get a set of legendary, soulbound armor.¡± Kit¡¯s eyes widened. ¡°Are those typically long, drawn out quests or-¡± I immediately got bombarded with questions. ¡°Where is the armor? How did you see it? What region is it in, can you at le-¡± ¡°Stop.¡± I made a slicing horizontal motion with my right hand. ¡°I don¡¯t know where it is and I just read it on the internet¡­ and no I don¡¯t have my history because it was in a private session.¡± Kit made a kind of ¡°harrumph¡± noise and leaned back on the couch. ¡°Well, typically, yes, those questlines are super long and also rare as all hell. Like super-ultra-mega rare. Like there are only three people who have gotten sets of armor from those kinds of Legendary quests, in the history of the game.¡± ¡°Hm, okay, thanks.¡± I drank some more of my soda and we ended up just chatting about our lives and such at the moment for a while. It eventually came time for him to leave to go run some errands or some-such and we said our goodbyes, and he promised he¡¯d find out what the file said, and he also used an app on his phone to send me a friend request in-game. By the time he left, it was nearing 9PM, so I decided to just maybe slip back into the pod for another couple hours. Chapter Ten I spawned back in front of Eunuch. I remembered the letter the street urchin had given me but decided to get some sleep-in game first instead. I walked into town and immediately a chat box in the lower left of my screen faded into existence. This was pretty typical of the chat box placement of most MMORPGs/VRMMORPGs/VRMMO games in general. It just feels right. ons of people were hawking their wares and linking items in chat. I was astounded at the amount of people in chat. However, only a rare few had actually rare items, being well-off items with good stats, those being blues or epics. The rest were just trying to make a buck, which, I could understand. Merchants lined the street coming into the town, hawking their wares verbally as well as other players hawking their wares. I went up to one of the NPC merchants, some guy selling meat from a stall. Looked pretty fresh. I inspected one of the pieces of meat. [Golden Cow Flank] Ingredient Spoils in: 7D:9H:10M I wasn¡¯t aware ingredients could also have qualities. Some high quality food must be made around here. I couldn¡¯t wait to try it. It suddenly dawned on me that I was actually having some fun, even as little as it was, at the moment. I was actually enjoying myself. Feeling the weight of my mace on my hip, and my wooden shield on my arm, the crappy burlap clothing I was wearing, the Mail helmet I had on being padded perfectly for my head¡­ it was all so surreal and I wasn¡¯t sure what I was feeling was right, much less using my mother¡¯s old VRCapsule that she died in. I mean not in a ¡°I¡¯m going to get sick from corpse germs¡± way, the VRCapsule sterilizes itself after every use, but in the moral sense. But the sights, the sounds, the smells all pushed that away. The merchant was staring at me like I had two heads while I was staring off into space. ¡°Apologies,¡± I said, ¡°I¡¯m just inspecting the meat you have on your stand here. The name¡¯s Setari.¡± I held out my hand to shake his. Also if it was one thing I could appreciate in life, it was meat. ¡°Ah, yes, my friend, my name is Abjul!¡± I nodded as he shook my hand. ¡°Our meat is provided from the freshest dungeon creatures every day!¡± He leaned in close to me and said, ¡°Between you and me, if you want, I can get you a good deal on this meat. You look like a well-worn traveler and I¡¯m sure you can appreciate fine meat such as this!¡± He waved his hand over his stall and a golden glow appeared around it. I inspected the actual stand. [Meat Stand] Enchanted with: [Glowing Radiance] Type: Visual Any person who could afford an Epic enchant that was activated on arm-swipe had to be selling good product. I made a mental note in my head to keep track of this guy. ¡°Abjul, I appreciate the offer, but I am actually looking for a good inn to stay at for the night.¡±This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. ¡°Oh, yes! The very best! Just down the street there is a tavern called The Sow. Great food and soft beds! Very home-like. I have a room there personally as well. It¡¯s a little bit expensive, but well worth the money.¡± Seeing as I had 4,900 gold from that GD chest, I wasn¡¯t starving for cash at the moment. ¡°That sounds very nice, thank you! I hope to see you there so we can chat. I might not be there for a while though, I¡¯ll be in and out. Adventuring things, you know.¡± He nodded and I walked off, waving a goodbye and him waving back to me. I turned around and yelled ¡°Abjul!¡± and he looked at me and I tossed him a 100g coin. ¡°Thanks again!¡± He bit the coin to make sure it was real and slipped it away and kept waving, always smiling. A little while later I found The Sow tavern. Why were taverns always named after farm animals or weapons and stuff, I wondered. I headed inside the tavern. Immediately a scent of apple pie with cinnamon in it hit me. I could smell that smell all day long and not get tired of it, it made my entire body relax from my journey and I just wanted to melt on the floor. But, I had to get a room, at the least for my character. I could always sleep inside the simulation but I figured it¡¯d be better to get a room to store my things in at least. I walked up to the bartender, a pudgy looking woman who was wiping down a set of glass steins without lids on them. ¡°Welcome to tha¡¯ Sow, what can I do ye¡¯ fer?¡± She had a heavy accent on her. ¡°I¡¯m looking to get a room at this tavern.¡± I hopped up slightly and sat down on one of the wooden barstools. ¡°That¡¯ll be two hundred gold up front for repairs to the room for any damages, just in case, and fifty gold a night.¡± ¡°Hmmmm. 30 gold a night sounds better to me.¡± I scooped a bunch of golden coins from my bag and placed them on the counter. ¡°Paid in advance, as well.¡± Her eyes bulged out at the money. ¡°I-uh-I-uh, I need ta go speak with me husband!¡± She rushed into the kitchen which had swinging doors on it. I sat there just admiring the smell and the polished look of the tavern was very nice. The chairs were varnished and polished to a nice sheen, and the torches in the place as well as the couple fireplaces inside at either end of the tavern horizontally were a nice touch, obviously stone fireplaces. The bartender lady came back out of the kitchen while my eyes were uh, taking a rest. ¡°Yes, this will be fine.¡± She counted up the money. ¡°So you will be staying two weeks or so?¡± A prompt appeared in my vision as well about some Trading skill, but I sent it to the notifications that were minimized at the bottom of my vision. ¡°Eh, probably? I¡¯m not sure. What is the policy about if I pay in advance but don¡¯t stay the full amount of days? I¡¯m Setari by the way,¡± and held out my hand. ¡°Olga. We will refund you half of the amount that is left.¡± I nodded. That sounded good to me. ¡°That¡¯s fine.¡± She handed me a key with a wooden piece attached to the handle of the key that was engraved with 104 on it. ¡°Room 104, I take it?¡± She nodded as she scooped all the gold into a bag and set it underneath the counter. I walked to the stairs next to the bar a little ways away and headed upstairs to find room 104. As I hit the top of the stairs, I got a notification.
When reaching the top of the stairs in a tavern for the first time, you have two options:
Be teleported to your personal room.
Walk to the room door and enter it normally.
I thought perhaps they created separate instances for rooms due to the amount of players in the game, which is why I was getting this pop-up. Smart move, developers. Otherwise you¡¯d just have people camping out on the streets or close to the city walls every night, which, apparently is also a thing in this game, but I preferred a bed. However I wasn¡¯t one to be teleported places just yet, so I selected the second option and walked down the hall from the stairwell and found room 104 and entered it. It seems it was already loaded, as I walked into a large room with a four-poster bed, good looking sheets, a dresser, and various other things inside. I walked into the room, shut the door and checked out the dresser. The room was just¡­ very nice. I went in and laid on the bed and went to sleep, thinking of chests of loot and where I¡¯d go in the city tomorrow. I was out like a light with all my clothes on. Chapter Eleven I woke up early the next morning ready to start my day and my stomach grumbling for some food. I forgot I went to sleep with my gear on and decided to map my gear to a hotkey button on my UI, creating a new button and setting it off to the side. Then there was a knock at my door. I said for the person to enter and it was one of the serving girls, dressed in her normal ¡°wench¡± attire, I supposed you could call it. ¡°Sir, compliments of the cook of the inn. They said feel free to call for seconds as well, with this bell.¡± She handed me a tray full of plates of food. ¡°Also if you push this button on the side¡­¡± She pushed a button on the side of the tray and legs extended out of the tray, metal legs, to make a small table. I was thoroughly impressed. ¡°What kind of engineering is this?¡± I asked her as I grabbed a fork and ate some scrambled eggs. ¡°It¡¯s a combination of Gnomish and Dwarven engineering, sir. Both races work together on all sorts of inventions, to be quite honest. It¡¯s only come about in recent years that they decided to work together, taking a point from the Players in the world as well.¡± She had a point there. There were areas that I read about where PvP was not looked down upon, mostly arena fights, but otherwise the game was Player Versus Environment as could be, or PvE. Though I¡¯m sure a lot of times killing bandits felt like killing an actual person, but if people had an issue with that, there were so many other things to do. In fact, I remembered my chests in my bag, but I wanted to learn more about this Archaeology profession I had. The serving woman was still standing there, obviously expecting a tip. I flipped her a 5 gold coin and asked, ¡°Is there someplace I can learn about the Archaeology profession in this city?¡± I took another huge bite of my food. ¡°Yes,¡± she answered. ¡°Antivitz in town specializes in Archaeology, he¡¯s across town though¡­ and I don¡¯t actually know the directions to get there, sorry.¡± ¡°No worries,¡± I answered. She promptly left the room and shut the door and left me to eat in peace. There were eggs, toast, ham, bacon and a small-ish steak, all either on the main plate or separated out onto other plates on the tray. I dug in heartily. After eating my fill, I left the tray with all the plates and silverware on it on top of the long dresser, and left the inn, after saying good day to the barkeep, a gruff looking man. Perhaps Olga was his wife. I stepped out onto the wide side-street of Eunuch. I also hadn¡¯t forgotten my letter in my bag but, quests could wait. There was phat loot to be had via Archaeology! And I made my way toward what I thought would be the other end of town, asking for directions along the way. Eventually, I made it to his shop. The shop was in a little bit of a state of slight disrepair, the sign hanging off the handle for it being held up by one chain hanging, the other hanging unattached to anything. The shop looked well enough, the storefront window displaying some of his finds for sale. I took a look at one, a set of earrings. Beautifully polished to a shine in the sunlight and just looking like they were definitely magically enchanted, as if there were slight sparkles coming off of them. I couldn¡¯t tell whether it was a visual effect or the sunlight. [Earrings of Queen Naz¡¯aresh] PER +20 CHA+50 LCK +20 Beauty +100 Description: These earrings were worn by the queen of the long lost Naz¡¯catec race. Set (2) (Earrings, Headband): Beauty +200, CHA+100, LCK+20. Grants skill Charm: Influences someone to do your bidding for ten minutes. Race restrictions apply. I thought this was interesting as you wouldn¡¯t think mind control would ever be a thing in a fantasy world, but I was sure the cooldown on it was probably extremely high, as well as the price tag, which I glanced at. 5 million gold. That was a lot. I shrugged and looked at some of the other baubles in the large front window. Various jewelry pieces and helmets, one full set of armor that was epic and cost a lot more than the earrings. No idea how long it might¡¯ve taken to find each piece of that in a dig, much less restore it to that degree. This world was truly magical. I headed inside the shop to find the shop owner, Antivitz. ¡°Hello?¡± I called out. I walked more into the shop, moving through shelves of knicknacks and various pieces of gear on shelves. The shop was eerily quiet, and I felt a little uncomfortable. But I had a mission and I was not going to let it go! I made my way past all the shelving and¡­ there was more shelving. And more. More aisles of shelves. Tons of shelves everywhere. I felt like I was in a maze. ¡°What the hell is this place?¡± I muttered to myself as I kept walking in what seemed like an endless maze of shelves. ¡°Hello?!¡± I called out. Nothing. No sound, just a bunch of sunlight still filtering into the window for some reason - Wait, sunlight behind me? I¡¯ve been walking for ten minutes, I shouldn¡¯t have sunlight behind me, I thought to myself. I turned around and the exit to the store was ten feet away from me still, like I hadn¡¯t even moved.Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator. I immediately turned and rushed out of the store, freaking out, and sat down away from the door against the shop wall, underneath the window. ¡°What the fuck was that?¡± I asked myself. ¡°Hey! Yew! Outside me shop!¡± I looked up from my zoning out at the ground. There was a red haired dwarf coming toward me, a hard look in his eyes. ¡°Whaddaya think yer doin¡¯ inside me shop when I¡¯m not there!?¡± He came up to me as I stood up. His eyes widened as he looked at me. ¡°Are you¡­¡± he paused, looking at me with an armful of bags. ¡°Get in the shop.¡± I opened the door for him and followed him inside, while asking: ¡°Why could I not go anywhere in your shop? I walked in and walked for ten minutes past shelves of stuff and then turned around and the door was still right behind me like I barely moved!¡± ¡°Ah, yeh dolt. That¡¯s my anti-theft enchantment on the shop.¡± ¡°The whole building?¡± I asked, astounded. Though it occurred to me just then that if a stall could be enchanted with a visual effect, what couldn¡¯t be done in this world? I shook my head to clear my thoughts. ¡°Ye, the whole building! Pretty effective isn¡¯t it? It disables when I¡¯m in the shop. Come to the front with me.¡± I followed him to the front counter which was on the far left side of the store, which explains why I couldn¡¯t see it when I came in as well. The shop was actually medium sized, so he must make a decent bit off of these trinkets. ¡°So, just what exactly do you need done from me? I know yer a Player of course, so it¡¯s probably trainin¡¯ ya be needin¡¯, right?¡± I nodded. ¡°Yes, I was hoping to be trained in Archaeology. I was hoping you could assist me with that.¡± ¡°Just yer luck, I was just about to head out with a caravan, just let me put these things up in the back of the store and we¡¯ll be on our way. From the looks of ye, you¡¯re a Cleric right? The party can always use a healer.¡± He took the bags he was holding this whole time into the back of the store while saying that. ¡°Yes, I am a Cleric at the moment!¡± I said, loudly so he could hear me in the back. I just heard a ¡°Great!¡± and some clattering and clunking as I waited for him to come out, as well as some muttering to himself. I looked around the shop and browsed his wares. He actually seemed to have everything organized by class, besides some various trinkets anyone could use. I looked for the Cleric section and found it near the edge of the store to the right of me, on the right wall. I browsed Epic and Rare weapons, each looked so well-crafted from various materials, but none lower than Mithril. A few seemed to be made from other materials I was unaware of. Unfortunately inspecting an item didn¡¯t tell you what it was made of, but becoming a blacksmith or miner might, which I was going to do. Mining might help with Archaeology as well, I thought to myself. Antivitz walked out carrying a two large warhammers, one enchanted with a blindingly bright light enchantment. Or what seemed to be ¡°blindingly bright¡± but was just a weird visual effect, because I could look at it just fine. It was made out of some white material and was studded with golden rivets in a square on the sides and larger pieces of metal on the hammer faces in a square as well. The other one was black, studded with red rivets in a square on the sides and on the hammer faces, the black one having smaller rivets on the hammer faces but looked like they were burning red-hot.. Both hammers were the bulky, square warhammers. Intricately carved and well-made, for sure. He held out the white warhammer to me. ¡°This is for you. I know your race and haven¡¯t seen your kind in quite a long time, if I do say so myself. How long it¡¯s been I¡¯m not even sure, but your kind is the race that got me into the profession of Archaeology. Where other Dwarves wanted to stay content in their underground cities and live their life, I wanted to explore the world and learn about the world of Eir.¡± I forgot the game was an actual planet. I mentally smacked myself on the forehead. ¡°And upon inspecting your own stats I see you have a hefty bonus to Archaeology yourself.¡± I took the warhammer from him, hefting its weight in my hands. I mentally discarded the old mace from my inventory, I wouldn¡¯t be needing it anymore, as well as the old plank shield I had, since taking the warhammer automatically equipped it for me in my inventory. My armor immediately made a sheath to slide the handle of the warhammer into on my back as well, and I slid it in like I had been using it all my life. I didn¡¯t even bother to inspect it, I knew it was a powerhouse of a weapon. ¡°Thank you, Antivitz. This means a lot to me. That weapon feels like it was meant for me.¡± ¡°That¡¯s because it was, ye damn idiot, or, for your race at least. That hammer belonged to the last King of the Naz¡¯catec, way back when the world was young. Well, younger at least. My hammer is its twin opposite and was wielded by the king¡¯s brother, as well. There was some rivalry there to say the least, but no killing of siblings or anything like that. But, that¡¯s a story for another time. The caravan is just outside of the city and we¡¯re going to head to a new digsite I surveyed personally.¡± He sheathed his warhammer on his back, which was slightly comical since it was taller than he was but it shrunk to fit, and pulled out a small, brown, laquered box. ¡°These are for you as well.¡± I inspected the box as I took it.
[Archaeology Tools]
I opened the box. Inside was a bunch of small tools for detailing, like tiny toothpick things and brushes and stuff. I closed it and stowed it in my bag. ¡°Thank you, Antivitz, again. I have to ask, why are you being so nice and giving me all this stuff?¡± ¡°You don¡¯t even know what your coming means to this world, do you?¡± He asked. That was an odd question. It was just a game for pete¡¯s sake. ¡°Did any more show up with you?¡± ¡°Uh, no, not that I know of.¡± I shrugged. I was pretty sure this was a one time thing, not to mention that weird USB stick on the bottom of the pod maybe having something to do with my race, but whatever. ¡°Well, if you run into any more ¡°rare¡± races, make sure to bring them to me and I¡¯ll kit them out as best I can. Also, the more digs you come on with me, I¡¯ll give you some more gear for your specific race and class. Now, let¡¯s head out!¡± And he walked past me to the door and I followed him out, into the bright sunlight. Chapter Twelve We walked to the eastern edge of town, where I had come in from the south, we were walking out of a different entrance. There was a small wagon train of 3 covered wagons waiting for us. On the way out of the gate, Antivitz was telling me about the Naz¡¯catec race and how they were around for a long time and spread all over the planet among all the other older races, such as Naga and their various classes and subraces. Antivitz walked up to what seemed to be the wagon train¡¯s ¡°leader¡±, so to speak, a human. ¡°Hey, Fred, you guys headed out to the Wastes?¡± he asked. ¡°Yessir, just about to head out, Antivitz. You need a lift to a dig out there?¡± Obviously Antivitz was well known. ¡°Who¡¯s this by the way?¡± Fred looked at me. ¡°I¡¯m Z-uh, Setari.¡± I held out my hand but instead he leaned forward and clasped arms with me instead. ¡°Good to meet you, Setari. I take it Antivitz has taken you under his wing for Archaeology training. He doesn¡¯t get many trainees so I¡¯m sure he¡¯s really- ugh!¡± Antivitz punched Fred on the arm with massive Dwarven strength. ¡°Shut yer trap, ye old jabberwocky. Let¡¯s go get a seat in the back of one of the wagons.¡± Antivitz thumbed toward the back of the train. I followed Antivitz to the last wagon in the train, which was sparsely populated by one man already, an elf, mage by the looks of his red, gold embroidered robes and his staff, which came to a gnarled tip at the top and held a dull green orb inside the wood, almost like claws holding it on the top. He had no helmet or hat, which I thought odd, but I figured maybe having a hat or something all the time might be fairly uncomfortable. I removed my own helmet and sat it on my lap as well when we sat down. The game didn¡¯t really create unbearable heat inside armor or anything but it depended on where you were in the game as well obviously, or what you were doing in general. ¡°So, Antivitz. How much do you know about my race?¡± I asked him, curious about the background of my race since the character creator gave me literally no background at all. ¡°Ah, a lot. I¡¯ve based almost my entire life around the Naz¡¯catec, though a little Naga here, a little of every current race inhabiting Eir at the moment, Demons, et cetera. I¡¯m always on the lookout to discover new races that have existed in the past, but I tend to just find a lot of Naz¡¯catec stuff. But it¡¯s always extremely valuable wares, but then again I¡¯m a Master of Archaeology-¡± ¡°So everything you find basically turns to gold in your hands, haha, I got it. What¡¯s the least amount of racial stuff you¡¯ve found? Or a better way to say it, what¡¯s the ¡°rarest¡± race you¡¯ve-¡± ¡°Ho! Let¡¯s go boys, time¡¯s a wastin!¡± I heard someone bellow from in front of the wagon train, and the train started moving along the bumpy dirt trail. ¡°My question stands, heh.¡± I finished my question. ¡°Well, let¡¯s see. I¡¯ve found a decent amount of racial Demon things as well as a lot of Elven relics, but for stuff that¡¯s really deep in the ground it¡¯s mostly Naz¡¯catec and Demon. Human relics tend to be already hidden away in a monastery or something, they tend to keep hold on those pretty tight, but I¡¯ve found a few as well that I have cleaned up and such in my shop. I¡¯d say Naga artifacts are the rarest as most of the stuff they used was from the earth and soulbound to most of them so when they died, their items went back to the earth.¡± That was the first I¡¯d heard of Nagas not creating normal weapons and stuff and conjuring items from the earth. ¡°Were Nagas evil? There¡¯s a¡­ general stereotype where I come from that Nagas are evil in general.¡± ¡°Lad, there¡¯s no such thing as evil or good, only actions.¡± He paused in thought. ¡°But no, here on Eir there was the occasional war of course, as the amount of armaments I¡¯ve found in some places is astounding, but as I said, most Naga equipment was conjured. Nagas were extremely well off at conjuring and enchanting and illusionary things, so much so that they could construct whole buildings and towns on the weight of a couple Nagas¡¯ mana pools since they were such huge mana pools. Entire towns had been completely wiped off the map with almost no trace due to this as well. I¡¯ve found traces of Naga civilization of course but it was always random items like scale pickers or various modeled cups and stuff, stuff that might have been actually produced instead of conjured.¡± I nodded in thought. We both sat across from each other in the wagon for a very long time in silence after that, me staring out the back end of the wagon at the passing scenery and him at the floor or out the wagon as well.Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit. ¡°Have you been to the Wastes often? Wherever that is?¡± ¡°Aye, I go out there every week. I¡¯ve canvased a lot of the area myself for artifacts and have found pretty much everything in those canvased areas as well.¡± I pulled up my map and next to it, what I didn¡¯t notice before, or just didn¡¯t pay enough attention, probably the latter more than the former, were tracking buttons for certain professions. I hit the button that said ¡°Track¡± and it dropped down into ¡°Minerals¡± or ¡°Archaeology¡±. I tapped Archaeology and nothing happened to my immediate map. I zoomed out and saw the entire continent divided into sections, each section had its own name, but ¡°The Wastes¡± took up the majority of the continent, smack in the middle of it. It seemed whatever happened in the Wastes, the continent never recovered from. Above, on the map, it said ¡°Continent: Sher¡± and underneath it said ¡°Level 1 Continent¡±. I took it this was the basic starting continent. It was huge. I zoomed in on The Wastes on the map but it was all dark as was basically my current map for the current region, which was named Nare. The region we were heading toward where Antivitz had placed a waypoint for was named Gor. I¡¯m sure there was some Orcish history behind that name, most likely, surprisingly nobody seemed to want to change it, from what I had heard. ¡°Antivitz, do you know why this region is named Gor?¡± I asked him. This guy was a wealth of knowledge and I could not let my questions go unanswered. ¡°Eh, something about some Orc hero during some war back in the day who was named Gor¡¯gron or something like that-¡± ¡°Gor¡¯geron.¡± The elf in the carriage cut Antivitz off as he was speaking. ¡°His name was Gor¡¯geron.¡± ¡°Ah yeh, right, I suppose you¡¯re right, yes,¡± Antivitz fumbled with his hammer, which was laid across his lap, taken aback by the interruption. ¡°Gor¡¯geron. Apologies, to be quite honest, I don¡¯t care much for Orcs, they¡¯re an okay type, I suppose.¡± I looked at Antivitz. ¡°Bad blood between Dwarves and Orcs? Who would have thought¡­¡± I muttered to myself. I looked at the Elf. ¡°Do you know anything about Gor¡¯geron, sir, that you wouldn¡¯t mind sharing?¡± ¡°Considering I¡¯ve based my whole life around that war and the events that were in it, not particularly. It¡¯s my general line of work.¡± He sighed. ¡°Not that anyone has much need for a historian nowadays. Once in a while I get invited to a college to give advice on the war and the races involved, or to give a lecture, but there is only so much to talk about, about The Great War, I mean.¡± He paused. ¡°Gor¡¯geron was a grand tactician in the war, working with the other races alongside his own to bring down the abominations that were the Naga/Demon/Naz¡¯catec hybrids created by the Naga. At the time there were just the Elves, Orcs, Dwarves, Demons, Naga and Naz¡¯catec making up the majority of the races on the planet. There were general avian races as well as giants and the like but they made up a small percentage of the world¡¯s population-¡± ¡°Oh, those avians¡­ the Elea?¡± ¡°No, they rose after the war, though the Elea are around today, but the Elea¡¯nor are the ones I was talking about. Anyway, there were other races around and they assisted in the war with the Elves, Orcs and Dwarves, generally referred to as the ¡°Allied Races¡±, for the time. Humans weren¡¯t around yet as well, if you haven¡¯t guessed. The sad thing is some of the smaller races people did side with the, for purposes here, ¡°Evil-¡± he made air quotes, ¡°-races for the promise of power. Unfortunately magical technology progressed to the point where magical warfare was almost strictly forbidden, due to the way magic could be used. However, the Evil races didn¡¯t care and used magic without restraint. The Wastes were previously part of larger pieces of Gor, Neir, and Azutec, and they all touched borders in The Wastes, as old maps have pointed out. But something happened in The Wastes that obliterated the giant armies that were there and turned the war on its head.¡± He paused again. ¡°We think that it was some kind of giant magical bomb, if you will, that wiped out the remaining forces of the majority of the races, but all we have to go on is that The Wastes are just a gigantic crater, for that theory. We don¡¯t really know for sure, and I doubt we ever will.¡± ¡°Great bedtime story,¡± Antivitz huffed. ¡°Still didn¡¯t answer my friend¡¯s question, why was this region named after Gore¡¯geron?¡± ¡°Generally, he was an excellent soldier and tactician, and defended this entire region from mostly Demon invasion with his Orc divisions. Gor is a big place just as it was back then, and he didn¡¯t lose one fortress to the Demons, much less any cities or towns.¡± ¡°Aren¡¯t Orcs generally a race that thrives in war?¡± I asked. ¡°That¡¯s a general stereotype. They¡¯re fearsome fighters, but they¡¯re just like you and me in a common sense.¡± I nodded, that figured. ¡°Ever since the Players started showing up and working together with each other, there have been no quarrels between any race. Sure you have a spat here and there but nothing huge, though the Players are a real pain in the behind, no offense.¡± ¡°None taken,¡± I said. ¡°I¡¯m sure a lot of them are extremely stubborn people.¡± We talked some more about the world¡¯s history in general, Antivitz learning a thing or two as well. Eventually we all just fell asleep in our seats, and I was dreaming of all the artifacts I was going to find. Chapter Thirteen The wagon came to a sudden jolting stop, knocking me off of my bench inside the wagon and out of the wagon. I landed on the ground with an ¡®oof¡¯ on my back, knocking the wind out of me, my helmet clattering down next to me. I laid there attempting to wheeze some air back into my lungs. The next thing I noticed was the sounds of battle up in front of the wagon train. I rolled onto my belly, still trying to get air into my lungs to get up, and willed my new warhammer onto my back, still in its sheath. I picked up my helmet and slammed it onto my head as well. I had my hammer disappear for the wagon ride since it would have been annoying having it on my back for the whole ride. I got up immediately and unsheathed the hammer, its radiance immediately pushing the darkness back and lighting up the surrounding area around me. However, it was really dark still. I rushed toward the front of the caravan, seeing glinting steel off torchlight on the front wagon swinging wildly around toward what looked to be Fred. I threw the hammer straight at the opponent, the head of the hammer striking true and smashing them in the head with the hammer and it landing next to them. The man stood there, dazed at what just happened. Fred took the opportunity and immediately stabbed his sword into the man. I ran up to Fred as the seemingly-a-bandit dropped to the ground. ¡°Damn bandits,¡± I heard him mutter. ¡°Good timing, Setari, I thought I was done for.¡± We clasped arms again. I picked up my hammer afterwards. ¡°Nah, you were holding your own, dude. Don¡¯t sell yourself short. Let¡¯s go help everyone else.¡± We ran toward the next bunch of people fighting a few bandits. I came up from behind one and smashed him straight on the head with the hammer, my notifications blinking madly as soon as he collapsed, dead. I rotated the swing down and around into the side of another bandit¡¯s head as I stepped toward another bandit. He watched me swing toward him, knowing what was coming. The third bandit here was immediately mobbed by the other few people there and went down easily. I ran around to the other side of the cart and found Antivitz and the Elf mage, whom I just realized I didn¡¯t know his name, the mage blocking hits from the bandit heavily on the offensive and blocking blows from Antivitz, his warhammer trying to find an entrance to hit the bandit. This guy was good. I saw him notice my glowing hammer and he made an attempt to disengage with the Elf, which left his guard open. Antivitz swing his hammer at a low angle and completely broke the man¡¯s shin in two, the leg flopping around like a piece of jelly hanging off of a stick. He bellowed out in pain and collapsed onto the ground. Antivitz stood over him, hammer held high. ¡°Why did you attack our caravan?!¡± He bellowed out. I put the head of my hammer on the ground flat and leaned on it with my arms, watching this play out. ¡°I dunno man, we¡¯re just bandits!¡± the guy whimpered. ¡°I said we shouldn¡¯t! There were no guards though! We thought it was ripe for the picking!¡± ¡°Ye thought wrong, ye damn piece of goblin shite.¡± Antivitz brought his hammer down onto the man¡¯s helmetless head. ¡°Aaaahh! N-¡± His head splat like a watermelon on the ground. Blood spattered my armor, hammer, and the side of the caravan. While this was happening, Fred came and stood next to me without me noticing. ¡°You¡¯re cleaning that up, you sodding Dwarf! Look at my precious white caravan cover! Ruined!¡± I lifted my hammer up to illuminate the blood on the white canvas cover on the wagon. Fred sobbed. ¡°Blood is so hard to get out of that material!¡± ¡°I¡¯ve got it.¡± The elf mage said a few words and pointed at the caravan cover and it was white like new again. He pointed upwards and said a few words and well and a white dome came over all of us around the scene and our armor got cleaned up, good as new. I picked up my hammer and sheathed it back in its holder and hid it off of my back. ¡°Ugh, let me go back to sleep.¡± I said, the adrenaline wearing off. I started to walk to the back of the wagon to go back to sleep. Antivitz and the Elf followed and caught up to me. We climbed back into the back of the wagon and before we all dozed back off, I asked the Elf what his name was. He told me his name was Arun, and I fell back asleep, my helmet back on my head as a crappy pillow. The next morning I woke to the wagons still rumbling along, and Arun and Antivitz chatting about something that I wasn¡¯t awake enough to hear. I sat up on the bench. I felt like a homeless guy taking a nap on a bus, only instead of curved seats for sitting it was a flat bench, which I imagine was probably more comfortable than bus seats by any stretch of the imagination. ¡°Antivitz, what are you guys on about?¡± I asked, rubbing the sleep from my eyes. ¡°Look outside!¡± he said, giddily. I turned my head to look outside the wagon. Outside, the fields and forests of Gor were long behind us and we were now in The Wastes. I opened up my map to see how far we were into it. We were a few miles into the area now. ¡°Jesus.¡± Bones were literally strewn everywhere. We crunched over them as we rolled along, mixed with dirt and whatever else was mixed into this grey, dead soil. I poked my head outside of the wagon as well to take a look at outside of the general area of the wagon. There was absolutely no life at all in the dirt around us, only death and decay. Antivitz wasn¡¯t joking. There were literally millions of casualties in this war and it was just never cleaned up. ¡°We have to be careful of some Orcs in this area where we¡¯re going to be digging today,¡± Antivitz said to me. ¡°I¡¯ve also persuaded Arun here to come along as well since it¡¯s pretty nearby where the caravan was going to begin with.¡± I turned to Arun. ¡°Pardon me for asking, but where were you headed anyway?¡± ¡°Gor¡¯s capital city, Tares. I just have some business there is all.¡± ¡°Say no more.¡± I waved my hand at him as if to say ¡®no need to tell me anything else¡¯. ¡°Antivitz-¡± ¡°At this point lad, just call me Vitz.¡± He shrugged. ¡°Alright, Vitz, are these Orcs going to attack us at any point or just shove us out of our dig or something?¡± ¡°Nah, they¡¯ll just yell at us to get out or something. I deal with them a lot. I also know their clan¡¯s chieftain personally, the clan of Orcs being the Warmongers.¡± I chuckled as he said the clan¡¯s name. ¡°Something funny, lad?¡± ¡°No, well, yes, that¡¯s such a generic Orc clan name, geezus.¡± Vitz chuckled as well at the irony of their name. ¡°Well, I never thought about it,¡± he chuckled heartily more, ¡°but, it is, isn¡¯t it?¡± We had a good laugh as the caravan pulled to a stop. ¡°Alright lads-¡±This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. ¡°I¡¯m probably older than you Antivitz,¡± Arun started to say, as Vitz glared at him, making him stop talking. ¡°We¡¯re at the digsite. Hop on out!¡± Vitz declared. I waved goodbye to Arun as he stayed in the cart, headed for Gor¡¯s capital. I jumped out of the back of the wagon, my burlap shirt mildly sweaty from the heat of The Wastes. I took off my helmet and stowed it in my bag. I looked around. The area was strewn with bones and old pieces of wood, as well as shards of exploded trees sticking out of the ground. It seemed like, actually, as I looked around, that the entire circle of The Wastes was ringed with trees that had just split into smithereens, giant chunks of trees sticking out of the ground. I also saw some Giant bones sticking out of the ground as well. I hadn¡¯t seen one yet since they were technically an active race, but it must be crap to play as, if I had to guess at the lack of Giant players. I feel like the battle might have taken place in what was once a forest or maybe a large clearing ringed by a forest and whatever it was that created The Wastes blew everything up. I¡¯d probably never know, though, I was interested. Vitz moved to the side of the clearing we were nearest, heading towards the wooded part of the area. We stopped just short of the forest, where a bunch of shards of wood and bone were. There were a lot of smaller pieces of wood, looking like old tent poles, perhaps? ¡°Alright lad, get to diggin¡¯!¡± He held out a shovel he produced from seemingly nowhere since he didn¡¯t have a bag, just pouches ringed around his belt. I took the shovel and poked the shovel into the ground. The shovel was light, but cut through the light dirt like a sword through air. The dirt was extremely soft and easy to move as well, almost like sand. ¡°If we¡¯re digging huge mounds of dirt, how do we fin-¡± as I attempted to move a bunch of dirt, I heard a grating noise, like my shovel hit something metal. I dropped to my knees and dug around whatever the item on the ground was. As I shifted away more dirt, a blue glow started to come from inside the dirt. Vitz didn¡¯t say anything, just watched. He hadn¡¯t even started digging himself yet! After a few more minutes of digging with my hands, I uncovered a large blue orb, ringed with gold bands vertically and horizontally. I inspected the item. [Mana Bomb] Charge: 100,000/100,000 Detonates on contact. Location found: The Wastes Then I had a notification laid over the description of the item. I looked away from the item to close the description and read the notification. You have discovered the profession: [Archaeology] Discover old treasures lost to time, if you know where to dig and what to look for! LCK+1 And then another notification came up, showing I had leveled up to level ten immediately in Archaeology with this find. Apparently that was a really good find, and I was halfway to level eleven. It looked like I¡¯d probably get +1 Luck every ten levels in the profession. But it was still a bomb, I realized. ¡°Uh¡­ Vit-¡± ¡°Yeah, I see it, lad.¡± ¡°What do we do with it?¡± He pulled out a large syringe with a large needle. Still handheld size but just large. ¡°Stick this in it and pull all the mana into this syringe. Then we blow it up.¡± ¡°W-what?¡± I was extremely surprised by this turn of events. ¡°You¡¯re very lucky to have found a mana bomb your first day out. We extract the mana from these and sell the pure mana at the shop, or use it for other purposes as well. It goes for quite a pretty gold coin, if I do say so myself.¡± ¡°How much?¡± ¡°About a gold per 5 charges, more or less. We tend to sell it a little bit at a time since it¡¯s typically bottled by every 3 drops via syringe.¡± My eyes widened. There was fifty thousand gold just sitting in this mana bomb, more or less. ¡°I get one of these almost every dig. They were pretty shoddily made despite the looks of the bomb. And since normal people can¡¯t condense their own mana into usage for crafting things, Liquid Mana sells for quite a lot, since you can create other materials from the mana, depending on how much of it you have. So it¡¯s like a wild card material for crafting.¡± I continued to dig around the orb as he was speaking to me, completely unearthing it, but leaving it in the hole. I took the syringe he was now holding out and held it to the glass , the glass seemed to reach a little bit for the syringe. I pushed it through and with a small pop noise, the syringe was in. I drew back on the syringe handle and it was like a super-powered vacuum was sucking up all the mana into the syringe. It was mildly satisfying to watch it being pulled into the syringe, the syringe being filled with a deep blue liquid. After a couple minutes of doing that, the syringe was completely full and I handed it back to Vitz. He stowed it in one of his pouches. ¡°Alright, stand back, lad.¡± I moved back a healthy distance from the area. Antivitz unsheathed his warhammer. ¡°Vitz, what the hell are you doing?¡± ¡°Exploding the bomb!¡± With that, in one swift motion, he made to slam the hammer into the bomb casing, and just as he was about to look like he was going to smash it into it, he stopped short of hitting it. Then he just barely touched it with the hammer. I heard a small tink noise as the hammer just barely touched the rim of one of the gold rings, and it seemed to disappear from reality, being erased, line by line. It was like watching a 3D printer in reverse, almost. The parts that were disappearing were just floating up into the air as small sparkly bits, floating away and disappearing into the air. It was, in a word, beautiful. After the show was done, I exclaimed, ¡°I thought it was supposed to explode?!¡± ¡°Lad, ye think I would get that close to something that would explode and kill me? Please. I love doing that to those things, it¡¯s my favorite part of finding those.¡± We both shared a laugh as I walked back towards him, and we got back to work. The day progressed with vigor as I found some select items that Vitz was interested in maybe once every hour. By the time we were done, it was dusk and Vitz brought out two small, single person tents, seemingly from nowhere, again. I thought about what we had discussed over the course of the day as I crawled into my tent, and laid down. Antivitz had seemed a bit touchy over the history of my personal race, and for some reason it seemed like it may have hurt him a bit to discuss history in general. Such a weird NPC personality for an archaeologist to have, but, I¡¯m sure I¡¯d get to the bottom of that sooner rather than later. I stared up at the tent¡¯s roof, a couple feet from my face and my body barely fitting into the tent. I accessed my UI and took a look at the hammer that Vitz gave me, just for giggles. I already knew it was incredibly powerful. [Hammer of Unyielding Light] STR +50 CON +50 INT +50 PER +10 LCK +5 This hammer was created by a Master Smith of the Naz¡¯catec, in conjunction with the Dwarf race for the king of the Naz¡¯catec, King Brom. A twin was also created for the king¡¯s brother, but it has been lost to time itself. I¡¯ll have to ask Antivitz where he found these, I thought to myself. However, just after reading the end of the description, a notification popped up.
Your elapsed time in the game in real world hours is: 37 hours, 2 minutes. Please leave your capsule now to eat and take a break!
I logged out immediately, surprised at the passage of time. Chapter Fourteen I waited for the pod I was laying in to rise to its normal 45 degree angle for me to step out. As the pod rose I felt extremely weak. I decided I would take a break for a couple days to recuperate from being in that damn thing for one and a half days, just a bit over. I headed into the kitchen and made a couple sandwiches and grabbed a glass of water and ate. I also immediately after eating just laid down on the couch and fell asleep. I woke up to knocking at the door. I grabbed my phone from the side table and checked the time. A whole day had pretty much passed and it was the next day as well. I wondered if the game had parameters for NPCs to know when a person logged out or not, I felt kind of bad for Antivitz. I laid there not really wanting to move, wanting to just die as I was also hungry again but didn¡¯t feel like making any food. There was another knock at the door, so I was sure it wasn¡¯t a figment of my imagination from just waking up. I immediately sat up and got off the couch with a groan, my muscles stiff from laying down for so long, from in the pod and sleeping. I went to the door and opened it. There was a giant box. A delivery guy from SigmaCorp peeked out from behind the box. ¡°Delivery for Zack Fitz?¡± the guy said. ¡°Uh, yeah, that¡¯s me, but I didn¡¯t order any-¡± ¡°Yeah, I know, just sign this please.¡± He held out a piece of paper from behind the box. I took it and placed it on the wall and took the pen he had now in his hand as well, and signed the paper on the bottom on the signature line. I stepped back and he carted in the box into the house. ¡°It¡¯s the newest model of VRPod, or whatever you wanna call it, fresh off the line, QA tested thoroughly and everything.¡± The box gave no indication of this, it was just a plain, huge cardboard box. ¡°What? When did you guys come out with a new model?¡± ¡°Probably a month ago? I¡¯m not really sure, to be honest, maybe two months ago.¡± I hadn¡¯t even heard of this being a thing anywhere, and I was sure the internet community would have been abuzz with this news. I was mildly skeptical. ¡°How come I haven¡¯t heard anything about it, or read anything about it on the internet?¡± I realized it¡¯s the ¡°intranet¡± now but, old habits die hard. ¡°It¡¯s been kept under wraps for quite a while. Do you need help setting it up?¡± He made like he was going to go out the door as soon as I said no, and I was sure he had other deliveries to get to. ¡°Nah, I¡¯m good, thanks.¡± ¡°Alright.¡± He undid the wiring from the existing pod, and moved the new pod into position, unboxed it, and just plugged in the intranet cord into the specified port as well as performed a file transfer, taking all the files on the old pod and placing it on the new pod¡¯s hard drive, and booted it up. After all that, he carted out the old pod. ¡°It¡¯ll have a thirty minute initial boot-up, but after that it¡¯ll be seconds whenever you turn it off and back on, by the way. Just check on it after thirty minutes. Have fun!¡± ¡°Sure, sure.¡± I nodded to him. He went out the door and shut it behind him. I decided since I was not in the mood to produce a sandwich, I ordered a pizza and just flipped the TV on. It was on a news channel, and coincidentally, they were talking about the new VRPods, the one that I had just gotten. A female news anchor and a male news anchor were talking about the VRPods and SwordGate. The woman was currently speaking. ¡°...met with critical acclaim as the game SwordGate, hosted by SigmaCorp, offers an enhanced experience with the new model XM005 VRPod.¡±You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author. ¡°That¡¯s right, Kelly.¡± The screen shifted slightly to the left and zoomed in on the male, showing an image of a box for Swordgate. ¡°The game has been a huge hit with people who are able to get their hands on a VR interface, as well as people who are using the haptic headset interfaces as well, even though that offers a slightly more lackluster experience, it¡¯s an experience nonetheless.¡± The camera zoomed back out and focused on the two anchors, and the female continued: ¡°Also, SigmaCorp¡¯ stock went up fifty points today, making their stocks one of the most valuable on the planet at the moment, and making quite a lot of people a lot of money¡­¡± I mildly zoned out from the newscast until I heard the male newscaster say something that piqued my interest: ¡°...criticism from many people about losing their children and parents, and in general many family members to the ¡°imprint¡± process these pods use to simulate the game to people¡¯s minds, so they can play the game SwordGate. We don¡¯t personally know the mechanics of the imprint process, only CEO Robert Shwaltz does, the man behind the imprint process. At this time there is no other VR game that uses the ¡°imprint¡± process, or a similar process, to have a person control an avatar in another virtual world, and Unfortunately as of quite a while ago people started dying in these pods or being shut off from the game completely, but this hasn¡¯t stopped sales of these pods or sales of the game. The haptic feedback headsets do not have this issue, but they are very much a simpler technology than the VRPods.¡± The male continued, whose name was apparently Kevin at the bottom of the screen: ¡°Yes, there have also been reports that those people who died here are very well and good in the world of SwordGate! It seems with the ¡°imprinting¡± system the pods use, the data collected from the brain is taken and used on the game¡¯s servers, and sometimes people will die in this world, but they will live on in the virtual world. Needless to say, this news has been taken as a rumor by many, and has not stopped the virtual reality craze that is SwordGate Online. In other news¡­¡± I zonked out again after that, thinking about getting back in the pod, the new pod, to play more, but I said I was going to take a break and I meant it. I¡¯m pretty sure eventually either I¡¯d become ¡°imprinted¡± on the game¡¯s servers or be booted off permanently. I wasn¡¯t sure how to feel about possibly being stuck in the game at this point, but I figured it was a long way off. I just had to remember to keep logging out on the regular to ensure that didn¡¯t happen to me. Though, it¡¯s not like I had any obligations in the real world to begin with anyway. I continued watching TV until the pizza came, ate some of the pizza on the couch . and watched some more of the news and flipped through channels, and browsed the internet on my computer. I ended up browsing the SwordGate forums, which, I could also access from in-game as well as any file I really wanted while in-game that was on the pod¡¯s hard drive, but there was nothing like sitting in a chair, staring at a screen, with a mouse in hand, just reading information. It was something I grew up with and still enjoyed, even if there were more advanced methods. I was particularly curious about my character¡¯s race and the Archaeology profession. I ended up finding out a few things, such as the rarity of items ended up giving you more EXP and points towards Archaeology, and taking up Archaeology ended up giving you additional points in the Luck stat, eventually. Also from the limited amount of people that have taken up Archaeology, a lot of them have found relics from the Naz¡¯catec and relics that have race restrictions on the Naz¡¯catec, so nobody else can use them, no matter how hard they try to equip a helmet or a bracer. And apparently, people have tried, for a really, really long time. I also found out that generally, the Naz¡¯catec were basically the ¡°Aztecs¡± of Eir. They were around even before Naga came out of the seas, and Demons from Hel roamed Eir. It was fascinating stuff, really. People pieced together their history bit by bit as they uncovered pieces of various lore from the Naz¡¯catec. Apparently, their empire spanned half the world at one point, generally before the Naga and Demons pushed them back, the Naz¡¯catec too lax in their empire to defend their borders from the other fledgling races of Elves and Dwarves. Obviously the Aztecs in the real world didn¡¯t span half a planet, of course. The Dwarves ended up being an offshoot of the Naz¡¯catec, that just liked generally being underground and built separate societies underground, for the purpose of supplying the general public with rare ores and gems and such. Elves were of no relation to the Naz¡¯catec. This was all very interesting to me, and points that I would bring up to Antivitz when I got back into the game. But for now, I laid down on the couch again and fell asleep yet again. My dreams were full of weird looking artifacts and bandits, my sleep was a fitful one at the least. Chapter Fifteen I ended up waking up at 9AM the next morning after falling asleep at 10PM, so I got a lot of sleep. I ate some cereal after waking up and then hopped into the new pod. I immediately spawned back into the world, on the ground, in the position I logged out in. It was slightly chilly as it seemed to be early morning, 3/4ths of the sun cracked over the horizon. As I got up I looked around for Antivitz, who was nowhere to be found at the current moment around me. ¡°Antivitz?!¡± I bellowed out. ¡°Hey!¡± I heard someone else bellow at me, and it sure wasn¡¯t Antivitz. It was a super gruff, huge bellow of a word and I only had one thought: Orcs. I turned around in a circle trying to find the Orc that yelled at me. I heard brush being pulled away from the treeline as an Orc came out of it. Big, green, and mean-as-hell looking, geared out in spiked shoulder pads and tribal-looking armor, mostly leather and fur. He had a bow slung across his chest and a big haft coming from behind him, most likely to a two-handed axe. His face was chiseled in that general Orc look, with some underbite and large-ish fangs coming from his lower jaw. ¡°Look man, I don¡¯t want any trouble, I was here with my Archaeologist trainer and left, and I came back and now he¡¯s gone.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t care what you were doing here, you¡¯re desecrating ancient Orcish burial grounds! Get out of here!¡± The Orc continued forward this whole time, moving toward me at a rate that I was extremely uncomfortable with, but stood my ground. ¡°Dude, you wanna take it up with my trainer, not me! I¡¯ll leave right now, I just have to find my trainer! I have no way to get back to town! I don¡¯t even know barely where the hell I am!¡± Technically I could have followed The Orc stepped up to me. My four foot nine to his seven foot whatever made him particularly imposing to me, but I had to find Antivitz. Eunuch needed their archaeologist! He bent down and shoved his face inches from mine. I could smell his rancid breath and desperately tried to not make a face, keeping a stony glare as I held his eyes, locked with mine. He exhaled through his nose quickly, his large nostrils flaring like a bull about to charge. ¡°It¡¯s not my problem if you have no way to get back to where you came from, tiny Dwarf. Who is your trainer?¡± ¡°Antivitz.¡± I saw the Orc¡¯s eyes change into a slight spark of recognizing the name, but he didn¡¯t look away or change his posture. I immediately stepped forward and pushed him back. ¡°Where is he?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t need to tell you anything.¡± ¡°You know where he is. Where is he?¡± ¡°I¡¯ve never heard that name in my life.¡± I literally knocked my head against his in a mini-headbutt. ¡°Where is he you green piece of fucking bird crap,¡± I snarled at him. ¡°I swear to god if you killed him-¡± ¡°Unwog, what in Gor¡¯s name are you doing?! Get over here and hang these damned furs before I knock your teeth in, you giant oaf!¡± a slightly gruff female voice cut me off. The Orc immediately straightened up, a slightly frightened look coloring his facial expressions, a far cry from what he looked like a split second ago. He yelled out, turning his head in that general direction, saying:Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original. ¡°I¡¯m busy, I¡¯ll be there in a second!¡± I cracked a slight smile under my beard, but to the Orc, he wouldn¡¯t have seen it. ¡°Your name is Unwog?¡± I asked him, failing to hold back a snort of laughter. ¡°Yes, it is.¡± He turned to face me, looking down at me with a disdainful look.¡°You¡¯re coming with me. I¡¯m turning you in to the chieftain.¡± I shrugged. ¡°Alright.¡± I had my Hammer on my back the whole time in case it got ugly, but I immediately had it dissipate off my back, and then the Orc picked me up off the ground by the scruff of my shirt like a child. I waggled in the air. ¡°Hey! Let me go! I can walk perfectly fine, thanks!¡± ¡°No. You want to act like a child and not leave when you¡¯re told, I¡¯ll carry you like a child,¡± he grunted. We went into the forest a little ways and we came upon a small, maybe one room hut built from various stones and mortared together with a mix of mud and possibly actual concrete mortar? I couldn¡¯t really tell. An Orc woman strode out of the hut. ¡°Gor¡¯s fangs Unwog, how lazy can you-¡± She saw me and looked at Unwog. ¡°Unwog, put the Dwarf down,¡± at which he lowered me to the ground, and the Orc woman continued, ¡°what the hell pulled you away from your damned chores? This Dwarf, who was literally hurting nobody being out there in the Wastes?¡± ¡°You know as well as I do that that¡¯s where Gor¡¯s encampment was in the war, and nobody has a right to sniff around an Orcish burial ground!¡± ¡°Right, besides you, because you¡¯re literally out there every day looking for old armor and all that other crap, that I keep telling you to throw away.¡± She glared at him. I stood there in silence, enjoying watching a seemingly married Orc getting chewed out by his wife. Singledom was sweet. I was trying not to laugh. ¡°They¡¯re not old junk Bula, they¡¯re artifacts!¡± He seemed to be very sad at the uncovering of the fact that he literally does the same thing I was there for. ¡°They¡¯re not even Common level rarity! They¡¯re all gray junk! You have an entire room full of these things that are literally worth nothing! You keep bothering that one Dwarf who visits the chieftain-¡± ¡°-Antivitz,¡± I interjected. ¡°Yes, that one, to buy this shill from you, and he never does! What do you have to say to that?!¡± ¡°One day they¡¯ll be worth something! And then you¡¯ll regret yelling at me about this!¡± He grabbed me by the scruff of the shirt again and lifted me up again. ¡°Hey!¡± I fought, trying to get down, waggling around in the air again like an idiot. ¡°Lemme down! Let me down!¡± ¡°I am taking this interloper to the chieftain to see what his punishment is!¡± Unwog stormed off, away from his seemingly-a-wife and back into the forest, assumingly toward the tribe¡¯s center of the village or whatever. I eventually stopped fighting after a minute and just sat there in the air. ¡°Dude, she¡¯s a bitch.¡± I said to Unwog. He said nothing. ¡°In my opinion, if you like collecting that stuff, don¡¯t let her throw it away.. I mean, can¡¯t you just clear out an area close by and build another hut to store that stuff in or something? You obviously are interested in Archaeology as well, that¡¯s what I was with Antivitz for in that area you found me in.¡± He still said nothing, just walked through the forest, stomping on underbrush and small trees and saplings, moving branches out of the way with his right hand and holding onto me with his left. I kept running into branches and leaves while he was holding me in the air with a locked, straight arm, spitting and wiping my face every five seconds, trying not to eat leaves. It¡¯s a tough life, being short n¡¯ stumpy. Chapter Sixteen Eventually, after walking for what seemed like forever but was probably only ten minutes but was magnified by my shirt cutting into my armpits, we walked into a group of huts kind of smacked around in different places in a clearing with stumps all around, inside the small village and around it. Seems they don¡¯t have any stump removal services here, could be a market to break into, if a lame one. We - or, he, since I wasn¡¯t really walking - made his way to the biggest hut in the center of the village, which I assumed was the chieftain¡¯s, and I assumed correctly because as soon as we entered I heard an old, gruff voice asking, ¡°Who enters the domain of the clan chieftain?¡± I barely heard the voice, but it was there. ¡°Unwog.¡± ¡°Enter.¡± Unwog stepped forward and the interior of the ¡°hut¡± changed to a bigger area. One that didn¡¯t seem like it could fit in this still-large-hut at all. In the center was a few Orc males, sitting in kind of a circle, talking, as well as the chieftain. The chieftain was adorned with some bones in his beard as ¡°beard jewelry¡± as well as black hair that was braided, falling down the sides of his face and all around his head save his face. Definitely a unique look for an Orc, that¡¯s for sure. I half expected him to pull a doobie out and start smoking the reefer. He was wearing a thin crown made of various yellowed bones as well, and the rest of him was just garbed in furs. It mildly reminded me of a Native American with his hair and stuff like that almost, but he was wearing some really heavy looking furs, probably bear furs mixed with heavy leather trappings on the inside. ¡°If we cleared the mines, we could begin making weapons for ourselves again instead of buying them from the Humans!¡± ¡°You know as well as I do that we have almost no warriors to speak of, and the ones we do have are lazy, insignificant gits who just drink all day and don¡¯t do anything. Peacetime has made them lax.¡± We reached the circle as the last word was spouted from that other orc. All of the orcs had the same crowns on their heads, but thinner, if that was possible. One Orc had fiery red and orange hair, one had black, one had brown, and all had the same underbite with varying tusk sizes. The chieftain had extremely large tusks though, I was pretty sure it was a sign of an elder Orc, but he still looked pretty young, for an Orc, I supposed. Unwog dropped me in the center of the three Orcs. ¡°That¡¯s very rude, Unwog.¡± I stepped out of the circle of Orcs, facing the chieftain. I bowed very stiffly and just said, ¡°Hello. My name is Setari. Unwog kidnapped me and now I have no idea where I am or where to go. I am looking for my Archaeology trainer, Antivitz.¡± The Orc chieftain eyes lit up at the mention of Antivitz. ¡°I know Antivitz. He¡¯s in the hut next door having a drink. Go see him.¡± ¡°Thank you.¡± And I made to walk away, when Unwog yelled, ¡°No! You do not get to leave before being punished for your crimes!¡± I stopped and turned back around. ¡°He was desecrating an Orcish burial site!¡± As he said this to the chieftain he pointed at me. ¡°He was taking valuable relics and those belong with the clan!¡± the chieftain sighed. ¡°Unwog¡­ we¡¯ve already had this discussion. There is nothing left there. There cannot be anything left there. The Great War destroyed everything there, there is nothing left. I¡¯ve told you this a thousand times. Gor¡¯s great fangs, I¡¯m pretty sure your wife has told you a thousand times.¡± I thought about the few pieces of armor in my bag I found there that were of Epic and Rare rarity but didn¡¯t say anything. ¡°By the gods Anwar, I know there has to be something there! There has to be!¡± I took some initiative and walked over to the chief and whispered in his ear, ¡°I¡¯m going to take him with me and Antivitz and attempt to teach him Archaeology. He¡¯s not a Player but he should be able to learn a profession, right?¡± The chieftain nodded and I walked away and gestured for Unwog to follow me. ¡°I am not following a Dwarf anywhere-¡± ¡°You will follow me if you ever want to find any goddamned relics in those godforsaken bone wastes!¡± I said, sternly, and walked out of the area and out of the building. ¡°Meet me in the hut next door.¡± I walked through the illusory wall and out of the hut, and went into the hut next door. As the interior of the building came into view I saw it was the same as the chieftain¡¯s hut. The interior was ¡°empty¡± and very tiny, so I walked forward into the hut more and walked through another illusory wall into a large tavern-like area, hearing a ¡®wheeee¡¯ as I walked in. I saw Antivitz spinning around on a large stool at the bar, comically oversized for anything other than an Orc. He was the source of the ¡®wheeee¡¯ noise. I stormed up to him.The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation. ¡°Antivitz!¡± His stool spun to a stop, and he turned to face me. ¡°Oh, oi, it¡¯s, uh,¡± he paused, apparently trying to think of my name. ¡°The Naz¡¯cat-¡± knowing that mentioning my race would probably draw some attention, I cut him off. ¡°Setari, it¡¯s Setari!¡± ¡°Ye, ye, Setari! How ya doin¡¯ lad?!¡± he slapped me on the back. ¡°Aren¡¯t you wondering why in the hell I¡¯m freaking here?¡± I asked him. ¡°I got kidnapped by an Orc and brought to the chieftain! He literally carried me here by the back of my shirt! I thought I was going to die!¡± ¡°You¡¯re here ain¡¯tcha lad? Plus you would have come back if they chopped you into bits and ate you in a stew anyway! You¡¯re a Player!¡± ¡°Dying. Hurts.¡± I said, emphasis on the two words and glaring at him. ¡°Indeed it does, lad.¡± He had the barkeep pour me a mug of ale, set a silver on the counter, and patted a stool to his right, next to him. I sighed and sat on the stool and took a sip of ale. It was warm and was pretty bad. I set it to the side and proceeded to take out the pieces of armor I found while on the dig with Antivitz. [Legguards of Gor¡¯geron¡¯s Wrath] Artifact +100 STR +50 CON + 10 AGI Class Restriction: Orc Set Bonus: Hidden until equipped by required race [Chestpiece of Gor¡¯geron¡¯s Wrath] Artifact +150 STR +50 CON +10 AGI Class Restriction: Orc Set Bonus: Hidden until equipped by required race [Chalice of Ingenuity] Artifact +50 INT +30 CON I decided to equip the chalice on myself, it was a trinket, and more mana never hurt anyone. It appeared on me as a small chalice attached to the top of my pants. I assumed it¡¯d move to my belt when I got one. I put the other pieces back into my bag. However, previously when I found these artifacts of Gor¡¯s, Vitz said they were extremely good finds as almost nobody had found Gor¡¯s armor before, except for himself. He sold Gor¡¯s boots in his shop, waiting for someone to come in and buy them, but he got precious little business as-is, and not too many Orcs had enough money to buy his finds in general, and the ones that did thought his wares were fake, for some reason. Or so he told me previously. ¡°So, Vitz,¡± I began, ¡°is there an Orc here who has asked you about your artifacts before, or asked you to purchase artifacts from him?¡± Antivitz sighed. ¡°Yes. I was hoping he wouldn¡¯t have noticed you when you came back and I would get back before you, but that wasn¡¯t the case. You did mention you were already now acquainted with Anwar, the shamanic chieftain of the tribe here, and Unwog brought you to him, right? I tend to be in the area of the village a lot so I know where most of the Orcs live that live near the edge of the wastes.¡± He took a deep swig of his beer. ¡°Unwog is obsessed with artifacts from the war for some reason, probably thinks his ancestors fought in the war or he¡¯s linked to Gor or something. All he has is absolute junk in his house.¡± ¡°Well, uh,¡± I paused, thinking about how to phrase this to him, ¡°I may or may not have insinuated that you might be willing to take him with us to the chieftain.¡± ¡°Ye...ye what?¡± That seemed to sober him up real quick. ¡°Well I figured you could use some muscle on your digs or something. At any rate you know he really wants to learn Archeology and he could probably be a worthwhile investment. Why did you bring me along?¡± I took a swig of crappy ale out of nervousness. I was pretty sure it was a nervous tic since I¡¯d done it all my life. Same thing with those people who mess with their T-shirts while speaking, etc. ¡°Ye may be right, lad.¡± Suddenly the door opened and a hulking figure stood in the doorway. ¡°Speak of the demons a¡¯ Hel, here he is.¡± Unwog walked up to the bar and sat on a stool and asked the barkeep for a beer. He produced a silver from somewhere on him and set it on the bar and took a swig of beer. ¡°¡®Sup, Unwog?¡± I asked him, carefully. I looked at Antivitz and he swiftly moved his eyes to the side, meaning to say ¡°skedaddle outta here, ye git¡±, so I moved away from where I was sitting, taking my warm ale, and went and sat at an empty table. I could barely make out what Antivitz was saying to Unwog but it looked promising. Finally after a few minutes, Antivitz waved me over with a ¡®tsst¡¯ and a wave of the hand, and Unwog had the biggest smile on his face as I walked over and hopped up on a stool again. ¡°Well? What¡¯s the verdict?¡± I asked. ¡°Antivitz is going to train me in Archaeology! I¡¯m so excited!¡± He almost looked like he wanted to scoop up Antivitz in a bear hug but Antivitz¡¯s glare kept him away. ¡°Alright, great. Can we get back to training please because this has taken up way too much of my time for my tastes,¡± I said. I mumbled under my breath, ¡°Frieakin¡¯ NPCs just doing nothing all the time¡­¡± ¡°What was that, lad?¡± Antivitz gave me a questioning look. ¡°Oh, I was just saying how I can¡¯t wait to get back out there.¡± ¡°That¡¯s what I thought. Let¡¯s go.¡± Antivitz put his ale down and got off his stool while Unwog chugged his quickly. We all left the tavern and went back to the digsite. Chapter Seventeen We made it back to the campsite a few minutes later, my tent still gently moving in the slight breeze. I folded the tent back up and handed it back to Antivitz and he stowed it away in a pouch on his belt. I saw him hand an Archaeology box to Unwog and he shoved a shovel my way and I took it and walked off, whereas Vitz began to instruct Unwog on what to do. As I was walking away I heard a ¡°I unlocked it, yes!¡± meaning he probably got the skill. I guess you had to have a trainer in the general proximity to actually unlock the skill. I immediately heard a ton of earth being flung all over the place. I walked out for about twenty minutes or so, out of sight of Vitz and Unwog, and began digging for myself in an area. I began to dig eagerly. Seeing how much Vitz¡¯s pieces were going for in his shop really amped me up to find more treasures. I dug for a long while, in random spots in the area, until my bones were aching with tension and stress. I only ended up finding one item which was an Epic sword, but mostly just a bunch of trash. Luckily, I increased my Archaeology skill to twenty, so I was okay with that. I ended up tossing the sword in my bag when I found it, but I ended up sitting to rest and regain my stamina, and I decided to look at it. [Sword of Lost Conquerors] Artifact +50STR +50CON +10CHA +1LCK Not a bad find for all intents and purposes. I figured there¡¯s a lot of treasure to be had with Archaeology, but I¡¯d probably have to give half of these finds to Antivitz, or at least split the profits, which would be a lot better. We¡¯d probably discuss that at a later point in time. I took out some food and water and ate in peace. Even all the way out here I could barely hear Antivitz bellowing at Unwog about some crap. A short while later the ground shakes and I¡¯m immediately reminded of some dinosaur movie I watched as a kid, where a glass of water shook with ripples in it as a huge dinosaur came near. But a dinosaur, this was not. The thumping became louder, faster, and closer. I was near the edge of the forest so I immediately tossed everything into my bag and rushed to the forest and dove into the brush without even looking around. I peeked out from the brush and saw a giant beast come into view, a giant Ogre. I inspected it from where I was and found it was a Mountain Ogre, level 277. I thought, ¡®Jesus, that thing has killed a ton of people to be that level, I¡¯m sure.¡¯ Its face was extremely scarred from many battles as well as the rest of its body, it was also covered in scales and parts of it had jagged rocks sticking out of its arms, shoulders and back from what I could see. It was skinny, in I guess humanoid beast terms, and it roared loudly and made off in the opposite direction again. I wasn¡¯t sure if it smelled my food I had in my pack when I took it out, or what, but I wasn¡¯t about to go back to that digsite. I made my way around the edge of The Wastes to a different area, mildly in the direction the Ogre went, but that thing was ten times as fast as me, so it was long gone. At this point the time was about a little into the sun hitting the horizon, getting ready to set. I heard branches and sticks being moved and crunching behind me as I was about to exit the forest. I materialized my hammer into my hands and swung around me in a circle, my hammer making impact with something and sending it flying into the trees and hearing a ¡°Whoa¡± and an ¡®oof¡¯ as I swung my hammer and had it impact with whoever was behind me. All I saw was a figure flying sideways back into the dense forest. Ain¡¯t nobody sneaks up on me, a Naz¡¯catec Dwarf! I waited a while for them to come back, but they never did. I feel like the rules in this game are smack first, ask questions later, so, that happened. Either they were in stealth, watching me in the trees, or I was of no interest to them anymore. Their stealth level must have been higher than my Perception level, because I tried looking in the trees for them to no avail. I exited the forest and began to move deeper into the wastes instead of staying near the treeline. It was an ominous feeling, seeing the forest disappear as I made my descent into the slowly sloping-down crater. The crater was absolutely huge, making up a large part of the actual continent. It was just an extremely gentle slope downward, but all I could see at the center of it was more gray dirt. Just a giant empty expanse of gray dirt. After a while of walking I decided to check my map. I wasn¡¯t even close to the center of it from what I could tell but I had only uncovered a straight line down into the crater, so it wasn¡¯t anything special. I had Archaeology tracking on as well but nothing was available on my map. I eventually just thought maybe the tracking was bugged and started digging in random spots until dark, but uncovered nothing else, so I decided to go back to Antivitz and Unwog. I just followed my path up to the top of the crater. I looked at my map and it was just a bunch of spots where I had dug, making a path criss-crossing each other on the map from my wildly running around the bit of the crater that I was in. I made my way back up to the site where Vitz and Unwog were supposed to be, taking out my torch for light to make my way to them, but they were nowhere to be found. But, I saw there were some footsteps in the dirt leading to farther into the wastes. It was a super long walk to get to where they were, so I wasn¡¯t really relishing going on an adventure to frieakin¡¯ look for an old dwarf and a stir-crazy Orc, but if they died, they wouldn¡¯t be respawning. I knew Antivitz could handle himself, but I didn¡¯t know about Unwog, and I didn¡¯t want to hear about crap from his wife for recommending Unwog to be taken in by Antivitz and now he¡¯d be dead.Find this and other great novels on the author''s preferred platform. Support original creators! So I got moving. I followed the trail of Dwarf and Orc steps and thought to myself that maybe, just maybe, they went off to fight the Ogre that I had seen earlier, possibly heard the roar from the Ogre? I picked up the pace, following the tracks. After ten or so minutes of following the tracks back down into the crater, I unlocked the Tracking skill. Skill Unlocked: Tracking Tracking is a valuable asset in hunting prey, or tracking people. Level 1 75%/100% ¡®Neat¡¯, I thought to myself. As soon as I acquired the skill the footprints lit up with bright motes of light, similar to what I saw underneath the abbey, only much tinier and lasting only a few seconds, coming up from the footprints. I also verified my notification settings, but I guess some new skills popped up where others didn¡¯t. I wasn¡¯t going to look too far into it. I followed the footprints for quite a while, sometimes getting lost as they collided with each other in circles, trying to use my map to navigate and not get lost. They managed to get a decent ways away, but I heard the sounds of the Ogre I encountered earlier roaring, hearing the sounds of battle from a ways away. I was walking around for what seemed like forever before I heard anything. I leveled up my Tracking to five on the way to them, the footprints now having stronger floating motes around them as well as lingering for longer. I didn¡¯t realize how far down in the crater we were, but I pulled up my map as I made my way toward the fighting noises and we were at least three times as far into the crater as I had originally made it down to, scrolling over to where I was for a comparison. I was so entranced by following the motes and footsteps, and being concerned for the two of them I didn¡¯t even notice. Eventually they came into my sight. The Ogre was winded, bruised (or what could be considered bruised as ¡®a bunch of cracked rocks on its arms and back¡¯) and panting heavily. Unwog had a huge gash on his chest and was bleeding profusely but still standing, and Antivitz was in no better condition. It seems he had equipped heavy Dwarven battle armor but it was heavily dented and seemed ready to fall apart, despite it still gleaming in the torchlight. I shot them both a party invite because I didn¡¯t want to lose track of them again and I might have been able to make it to them sooner if I had known where they were. They were surprised and looked around immediately, but the Ogre took this as a sign they weren¡¯t paying attention and charged Unwog, who immediately dived to the side. The Ogre¡¯s claws scraped the side of Unwog¡¯s leg, but not so much as he couldn¡¯t stand up afterward. I was pretty sure their adrenaline highs were winding down, so I needed to do something, fast. ¡®I¡¯m not sure if this will work, but I need to end this now, before someone dies. Other than that Ogre, I guess,¡¯ I thought to myself. I threw my torch towards the Ogre for light near the Ogre and in front of me, and took off at a jog, then gradually turning it into a full speed run. My hammer was about 1.5 times my height, and I planned to vault myself through the air and hopefully smash the Ogre on the head, if I do this right. Unfortunately my kind of short, stubby Dwarf legs, just a bit longer than Antivitz¡¯s, were not helping me in this case. At what I hoped was the right distance, I vaulted using my hammer as a basically rigid pole vault pole, and it sent me sailing through the air. I had increased distance since I was coming down the slope of the crater but this wasn¡¯t like using a broom handle at age six to carry myself between two couches or something. Different terrain, different clothing, different slope of the ground, different muscle mass and how heavy I am¡­ needless to say I careened through the air with my hammer and fell flat on my face five feet from the Ogre. I made a mental note that Dwarf-kind is not very aerodynamic, in any sense of the word. The Ogre roared in defiance at my flat-footed attempt to even tick him, much less smash him on the head, and attempted to step on me, but as soon as I heard the roar I rolled out of the way, bringing my hammer close to me to roll. I stood up as soon as I could and inspected the Ogre again. My notifications started blinking again meaning I¡¯d leveled up something but I couldn¡¯t care less. Quickly, while the Ogre was still getting its bearings, I brought up my notifications just to and was bombarded with many windows. I am not a smart person. I quickly started attempting to close them out one by one but knew that wasn¡¯t going to work, so I just yelled out, ¡°Close all notifications!¡± and they closed. That was pretty handy. Fortunately now I did see what I leveled up, and I guess it was the Inspect skill, which let me see more details about who I was inspecting. I was able to see the Ogre had a little less than 10% HP left, and with the party mainframe now that Unwog and Antivitz were in the party I could see they were getting there as well. Unwog had a bleeding debuff that slowly drained his HP as well, presumably from the large gash on his chest. Those Ogre claws are something to be feared. I charged in once again, aiming to maybe snap the Ogre¡¯s shin in two. The Ogre swiped at me but I easily dodged it and swung my hammer into its leg. I heard a slight cracking noise but for the most part the hammer bounced off the sinewy, tendoney leg and I took the force from it being bounced off, turned, and hit the other leg on the side as well, while the Ogre attempted another swing at me. My hammer bounced off the other leg, and I threw my hammer in-between its legs and dove underneath, ending up behind it, the grey dirt getting into my boots and on my shirt even more-so after rolling around in it. I heard Antivitz run up to the Ogre and I heard a crack as bone splintered somewhere on the Ogre and heard it cry out in a pained roar, stumbling backwards and almost stepping on me. I got up quickly and swung my hammer around, up over my head and kind of down and to the side into the back of its knee to make its knee buckle, and it fell to the ground down to one knee. I ran up to it, behind it still, and climbed its back to get to its head, climbing up the now broken and disfigured rocks on its back, having put away my hammer again. I got to its head just as it was beginning to stand up, stood on its shoulders and pulled my hammer out again, and raised it above my head, ready to smash it into in the Ogre¡¯s head, and said, ¡°It¡¯s hammer time, bitch.¡± and swung with all my might, yelling. My hammer sunk into its frontal area on its head and forehead area (Edit: Wrong head area, will change later), removing the rest of the Ogre¡¯s HP and making it topple to the ground, with me jumping off of the Ogre¡¯s shoulders before it hit the ground, and the Ogre making a muffled whimper and groan as it hit the ground dead, splayed out on the ground. We all fell to the ground on our backs, exhausted from the fight. Chapter Eighteen Unwog started bandaging himself to slow his HP loss rate. ¡°Good goin¡¯ lad! How¡¯d ye find us out here?¡± Antivitz said, huffing. I grabbed a skin of water out of my bag and tossed it to him and Unwog for a drink. ¡°Dude, I saw that Ogre over where I was like twenty minutes away from you guys. How did it hear you fuckers and what the hell were you doing to make so much noise to attract an Ogre?! Plus, you didn¡¯t even tell me Ogres lived out here, much less anything else!¡± ¡°Well, laddie, Mountain Ogres are scavengers and don¡¯t really come down from the mountains too often except to seek out different rocks to eat, or if they¡¯re just feeling antsy and want to eat some actual meat, I suppose. There¡¯s still a lot we don¡¯t know about general creatures of Eir, despite having had civilizations here for many thousands of years. Nobody¡¯s ever really looked into investigating creature habits. But, yeah, Ogres do appear here from time to time.¡± ¡°Also,¡± Unwog interjected, ¡°Thanks for the party invites, I got a lot of experience from that.¡± I went ahead and pulled up my status screen for myself. That Ogre boosted me to level ten, but I noticed, yet again, my notifications were blinking at the bottom, so I pulled it up. There was a window asking if I wanted to stay a Cleric past level ten, so that meant during this whole trip I had gone from level 1, leaving the city with Antivitz, to level ten and possibly beyond if I decided to stay a Cleric. Oh! I¡¯m a Cleric! I immediately remembered the fact I had healing spells and went ahead and cast the two spells I had on Unwog and Vitz, restoring their HP to about 10% each. I also went ahead and just inspected Antivitz and Unwog, learning that Antivitz was level 250 and Unwog was 200. Interesting that my magic healed so much, but maybe magic mechanics worked differently in this game. I decided to ask them as they sat on the ground drinking from my waterskins. My notifications were blinking yet again, so I brought them up. Apparently Weapon Skill was a thing as well, and I had 20/50 of the first rank Two Handed Mace skill, combined from the Ogre fight and the bandit fight earlier I would assume from the window I was looking at. Also my Heal skill could apparently rank up as well. I minimized it down to a small window and cast it on myself being full HP, but the percentage didn¡¯t go up as much as it probably did healing wounded people. I continued to heal them vigorously, taking about half of my mana for both of them. I had a pretty large pool of mana, it seemed. I wasn¡¯t one for crunching numbers or anything like that, so I just took it as is. But I¡¯d have to say, I was pretty geared for a newbie. After we all rested up, we went ahead and went back to the digsite. Antivitz mentioned on the way that the caravan was probably headed back from the capital and back into the town we came from, so we should camp there for the night for it. We had no trouble getting back to the campsite from there and went to sit and chill until the caravan came by, later that night. We swapped stories of various adventures we had been on, mostly from Unwog and Antivitz, and soon enough, the caravan came by and we hopped on a cart to take us back to Neir, where we came from originally. Antivitz had a load of artifacts along with my Gor¡¯s Armor pieces and my new trinket. I was going to discuss prices with Vitz when we got back to his shop.Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website. While Vitz and Unwog were speaking on the way back, I decided to open up the letter I got from that street urchin a while back, must have been a few days now. I withdrew it from my bag, and cracked the wax seal on the folded piece of paper, and opened it up. Dearest Zack, So lovely of you to enter the game to see me! Drop by the headquarters for Tarqu Industries sometime so we can have a chat. I hope you like the gift. And a name scribbled at the bottom which I could barely make out, -Adanaya Zurich I had no idea who this person was, but they apparently knew me. ¡°Hey, Antivitz?¡± I asked, slightly interrupting the beginning of another conversation between Unwog and Antivitz about artifacts. ¡°Do you know where the headquarters of Tarqu Industries is?¡± ¡°Aye, lad. It¡¯s in the capital of Neir, Ushak. One of the biggest buildings there, in fact. You players actually built it. It¡¯s apparently something called a ¡°skyscraper¡±. I¡¯d love to go meself, but, duty calls at work.¡± ¡°That¡¯s a weird name for a capital in the middle of non-Orc lands,¡± I mentioned. ¡°That¡¯s because the capital was founded by a now-famous Orc Merchant, Usha¡¯lak. It¡¯s a grand city now, but apparently it used to be just a few mud huts and various peoples,¡± Unwog interjected. ¡°It¡¯s grown a lot over the hundreds of years since it was founded, or so I was told as a little Orc. I¡¯ve never actually been to see it.¡± ¡°Well I have a letter that would probably get me in the front door there, apparently. From someone named Ananaya Zurich.¡± Vitz¡¯s eyes widened as I said their first and last name. ¡°My boy, that¡¯s the person who runs the whole company!¡± ¡°I also have an inkling of who it is, but I¡¯m not going to say until I find out for sure.¡± Antivitz and Unwog went back to discussing artifacts while I looked out the back at the passing scenery. I figured the trip would take a while, so I told Antivitz I¡¯d be back later, and logged out. Chapter Nineteen I woke up with my arms and legs strapped down to the pod, unable to move or do anything. I was staring at the pod¡¯s desktop screen in front of me, unable to even move my head. It felt like there were needles in my arms, like IV needles. I immediately started panicking. What if SigmaCorp was trying to get more people to die in these pods and be whisked away to virtual reality? What if the pod bugged out and kept me in here forever?! What if- The pod began talking, apparently having an automated AI inside. ¡°Hello, and welcome to SigmaCorp¡¯ exclusive new VRPod! We hope you enjoy your stay!¡± Seemed a bit backwards, since it should have said that before I logged in, not after I logged out. Nothing changed still and I was still strapped into the pod. I struggled a little bit, but the bindings were tight and held me fast. I wasn¡¯t sure what to do, so I just waited. I could see the front window from where I was and it was nighttime, and I was pretty bunked, so I went to sleep. I didn¡¯t even check what time it was. Also it was extremely hard to get to sleep without laying on my side, but, I did eventually. I woke up the next morning, as the VRPod¡¯s screen greeted me with the time of 9:43 AM. I was still strapped into the VRpod. I decided to go to SigmaCorp¡¯ help website and see if there was anything about this. ¡°Computer, can you navigate to SigmaCorp website for me?¡± I asked. A web browser popped up and went to the SigmaCorp website, but I didn¡¯t see any announcements on the front page or anything like that. I navigated to the community forums on the website, which were apparently abuzz with the news of the new VRPod, but nothing about my current issue as I scanned the forum. Maybe I needed to reinstall firmware for the pod or something, so I ordered the pod to do that. It did it, and nothing happened, even after the pod rebooted, the clamps did not loosen, the straps didn¡¯t loosen, nothing. I tried powering it on and off multiple times. Nothing. I tried ordering the pod to let me go, to loosen everything, to release. Nothing. Finally I resorted to making a forum post, in hopes maybe someone from SigmaCorp would help and see I was in need of a manual release from their end or something. I wrote a post explaining my problem, and actually got the pod to lift me into the 45 degree position, but nothing else. I laid, and waited. Meanwhile¡­ ¡°Ma¡¯am. Our scourers came across this forum post from your old Intranet Address.¡± A military dress-uniformed man, statue-esque faced, wearing a red beret and a crew-cut walked up to a large seat facing a large window, bowed slightly, and held a manilla file folder out for the woman in the chair to take. The woman in the seat did not turn around, but turned slightly and grabbed the folder the man was holding out, turned back to the window and opened the folder. The woman waved her hand to dismiss the man and he turned and walked away, back out of the room. The woman read the paper print-out despite being perfectly capable of reading messages in her own UI, but she liked to have paper trails of literally anything and everything. It reminded her of her old life. ¡°Very interesting. He is in a bit of a pickle, it seems. I think I¡¯ll leave him there for a while. I am holding half of SigmaCorp¡¯ stock, after all. Actually, fuck it.¡± She pressed a button on her chair and the well-dressed man came back into the large office again. ¡°Yes, ma¡¯am?¡± He bowed slightly yet again in respect to the woman. ¡°Initiate phase two.¡± After she said this, she dismissed him again. The man sent several messages through his interface, his eyes flickering wildly as he opened and closed windows and dismissed prompts. ¡°It¡¯s done, ma¡¯am.¡± ¡°Good.¡± She waved her hand outwardly from her chair again and looked through the file again. ¡°He will be here permanently, the same as me. And the more people who stay logged in permanently, the better things are for everybody.¡± *** I fell asleep again in the pod after some time of waiting. If one thing could be said about these things, it was like laying on a cloud with how comfortable it is. I woke up some time later with one forum reply from someone named Yomo_574.This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it. Don¡¯t make me laugh, SigmaCorp wouldn¡¯t do that to someone! Is this a troll post? Yeah that really made me feel great about my current predicament. I replied back. No, this is not a joke. I am currently stuck inside the newest model VRPod and am unable to move an inch. My head is strapped in, my arms are, my legs in two places, as I wrote in my previous post. I went ahead and posted that and then noticed my feet were actually wet, but I hadn¡¯t pissed my pants or anything like that. There was a wetness slowly creeping up my jeans, and I did not know what the heck was going on. But it felt like I was being slowly dunked into a pool. I edited my post with the information as such and logged back into the game. If I was going to be the victim of some frieakin¡¯ practical joke or something, I was going to extend my life maybe by living in SwordGate forever. A thing I was loathe to do for sure, but it beat being dead. I logged back in inside the covered wagon. It was a little past dawn. I checked my in-game clock for sure, and it was about 7:30AM. The wagons were still bumping and rolling along the dirt road. One thing that had changed though was that there were a ton of goods in the back of the cart now. Fruits, vegetables, sacks of grain and flour and all sorts of other food. My own stomach grumbled as well. I grabbed a piece of green fruit with what looked to be darker green rounded rectangles patterned on the outside of it. It almost looked like a broken texture, if there weren¡¯t little dots of the same dark green color in-between the rectangles. It was also very smooth skinned, like a plum. I took a bite of it and it tasted like I was eating a large grape, it wasn¡¯t bad. Most of the inside was the same texture as a grape as well, it just had a slightly thicker skin on it, which I ate as well. Maybe a little thicker than an apple skin. Unfortunately the juices from the fruit dribbled down into my beard. Sometimes I forget I¡¯m part-Dwarf. I wiped my beard on my sleeve. When I took a bite into it, Antivitz woke up from his nap and saw me trying to clean myself up. ¡°Yeh, fruit¡¯s a bit hard to eat for us Dwarves if it¡¯s juicy. It¡¯ll make your beard stick together and make ye look like a bum who hasn¡¯t washed in ages, hah! Seriously though, don¡¯t steal any more fruit.¡± ¡°Sorry,¡± I said. ¡°I haven¡¯t seen a lot of fruit around here. Is this what they traded for somewhere on the way back to Eunuch?¡± ¡°Boyo, we¡¯re going to Ushak! I was thinking about what you said about that letter you got, and figured you could use some backup. I convinced Unwog to come help as well considering I still have to train both of ye in Archaeology.¡± ¡°Erm¡­ doesn¡¯t Eunuch need its Archaeology trainer?¡± ¡°Nah, I¡¯m barely around in the shop anyway. If something happens to me, well, they¡¯ll replace me in time, I¡¯m sure.¡± He shrugged. ¡°I don¡¯t plan on anything happening to me though!¡± He laughed heartily and I had a chuckle with him. ¡°Plus the shop is still open to customers so I¡¯m constantly making money.¡± ¡°How are you making money if you¡¯re not there to sell anything?¡± ¡°Players can open the shop inventory from their interface and browse the wares, purchase and sell things as well. The shop acts as its own shopkeeper essentially, I just own the shop. But, the general system of things is that if a shopkeeper is in the town the shop is based in, it acts like a normal shop unless you have security measures on it, like I do with the endless shelving and moving nowhere. So if you are in town and don¡¯t lock up your shop before leaving it, thieves can take your stuff from your shop.¡± ¡°Ah. That is interesting to note and not something I previously knew. I still have a lot to learn about SwordGate.¡± ¡°That ye do, laddie.¡± He leaned over and ruffled my hair. I smoothed it back out as much as I could. ¡°Well I appreciate the company, nonetheless. The trip probably would have been pretty boring on my own.¡± I shut up until I was finished eating the fruit I stole, and Antivitz just leaned his head back and closed his eyes, relaxing as much as he could on these hard wooden benches. I decided to open a ticket to see if I could get through to anyone at SigmaCorp about uh¡­ what seemed to be my pod filling with water, or some other liquid. I felt like my body was being held at ransom or something. I attempted to access my house¡¯s security cameras (what CEO doesn¡¯t have security cameras in and/or around their house?) and have it look at my pod from a web browser in my interface. It turns out my body was half-submerged in water, or what looked to be water, I couldn¡¯t tell. But it was touching my hands. But I wondered where it was being stored in the pod? I mean I guess the underside could have been filled with water or something but wasn¡¯t the whole thing a giant computer? It didn¡¯t make sense at all to me. Plus the fact I wasn¡¯t being electrocuted by water in a computer. All of this took a few minutes, during which time Unwog woke up and also grabbed a piece of fruit and pretty much ate the whole thing in almost three bites or so, and was now looking out the back of the wagon, or at me messing with my UI with my hands. I closed my interface. ¡°Today¡¯s going to be a long day, Unwog.¡± I said to him. He nodded, zoning out at the opposite side of the wagon, and we watched the passing foliage in silence. Chapter Twenty It took us a long, uneventful trip to to to the capital, but we ended up doing it in just under 3 days. We ended up paying a gold out of my pocket to the wagon driver for eating some of their food, which was much more than they would have gotten selling it anyway, and we went off. I stared in awe at the buildings. Most were made of stone, and were short and stocky, but a select few looked straight ripped from reality, those being the few skyscrapers that were in the city. I had to say, it did not fit the aesthetic at all, but if people wanted to build skyscrapers then, more power to them I guess. Giant metal and glass buildings. I guess the glass-blower and forges of the city got paid a lot for their work, hopefully. Though, knowing some of these people were heavily business-minded, were probably way underpaid versus the materials needed to make that stuff, and enchant it against the elements probably. ¡°This way, laddie.¡± Antivitz took the lead through the city. ¡°Is there a place to stay here?¡± I asked him. ¡°Where did you pay to live in Eunuch?¡± He asked me. ¡°Eh, some tavern¡­ The Sow I think it was?¡± ¡°Ah, we may as well stop there first for a bite to eat and a rest before we head onward. If ye haven¡¯t noticed already as well, your maximum HP and Stamina lower while you¡¯re out and about doing things. It¡¯s very slow and only a couple of points an hour or two depending on your stats, but everything counts, here. When you sit down to rest you can recover your points, or eat cooked food and possibly get stat boosts as well. People prepare giant feasts inside dungeons and large dungeons, or raids as they¡¯re generally called, and buff their teammates up with fresh food. The food¡¯s buffs get weaker as it gets older too, so fresh food is important, and also that it¡¯s well prepared. Cooks are a valuable thing in this game.¡± We walked down the street as he spoke, Unwog taking in all the sights and sounds around us while I listened to Antivitz drone on about valuable information about the game. ¡°Huh, thanks Vitz, I didn¡¯t know that about food here. All I knew so far was that I could get some HP and Mana/stamina recover from sitting and eating food.¡± We discussed other things, mainly how to get more cash for myself, but Antivitz told me he¡¯d buy the Gor artifacts from me and I¡¯d get a lot of gold for those, so I was okay with my 3,000 gold or so right now. We eventually walked up to what looked to be a completely different tavern, but it was unmarked on the front sign and looked empty. There were a ton of people coming in and out though, and people talking to the door before walking in. it was weird. ¡°Alright laddie, go ahead and walk up to the door and just say what tavern you want.¡± ¡°What? That¡¯s not how things are supposed to work. What is this?¡± Vitz sighed. ¡°This is a transport tavern. When you start the game, wherever you spawn, you have the option of choosing a tavern. However when you do choose one, you¡¯re able to access it at any time, as long as you¡¯ve paid up on your bill at that tavern. Just walk up to the door and say ¡°The Sow¡±. Don¡¯t get into people¡¯s ways though.¡± I nodded, watching the flow of people coming in and out. They just didn¡¯t end. I moved forward and my party of two additionals followed me. We moved into the flow of traffic and eventually we came to the door. ¡°The Sow, please!¡± The door opened and I felt like I was being pulled like a magnet into the doorway, like it was trying to speed me along. We all hurried into the door and the door slammed behind us. ¡°Oh, one more thing, lad.¡± Antivitz turned to me. ¡°Transport taverns are fast travel spots on your map. Kind of like portals between places, but you have to be at one to get to another one.¡± That made more sense of why there were so many people coming in and out, and I told Vitz as such. ¡°Ah, yes. Well, taverns are usually pretty busy anyway, but with them functioning as fast travel spots, people tend to use them as rest spots before moving on.¡± We moved farther into the tavern to prevent blocking new entries. We sat at an empty table and Olga came over. ¡°Can we get some lamb stew please? For all three of us.¡± I asked Olga.Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere. ¡°You just want lamb stew? We can make literally anything here.¡± Olga said. ¡°I forgot to mention that to ye previously as well, I apologize.¡± ¡°No need. Uh¡­ actually just the stew is fine for now. You guys should make a menu of what¡¯s most commonly ordered and maybe some specials or something. I¡¯m surprised you guys haven¡¯t already.¡± ¡°Is a good idea,¡± she answered. ¡°And you two?¡± ¡°Stamina boost 50%, HP boost 50%.¡± Vitz answered. ¡°Same.¡± Unwog answered. ¡°Wait, I was supposed to order what I wanted in stats?¡± I asked. ¡°I guess I should have mentioned that to ye lad. Yes, typically you eat to fill hunger, but to get stat boosts. So what do you do when you want a stat boost? You order the stat boost since they have to make the food that gives you the stat boost.¡± ¡°Uh, I¡¯ll change my order to what they¡¯re having, plus Dexterity boost 50%.¡± It looked like these orders were being sent to the cooks in the back via the interface. ¡°Okay. This will be eight-hundred and fifty two gold and seventy two silvers.¡± ¡°Jesus christ, what the fuck guys?¡± ¡°Well ye want to be prepared for anything don¡¯t ye?¡± Vitz asked. ¡°Hell yeah but that¡¯s too much! Make it 20% boost food for us instead, Olga.¡± I said, glaring at Vitz. Vitz sheepishly twiddled his thumbs and looked at them while Unwog found the ceiling particularly interesting. ¡°What the fuck, you guys. Okay Olga 30% food, that¡¯s it.¡± ¡°That will be three hundred gold and seventy-five silvers.¡± I figured I¡¯d try mentally opening the window for it in the interface and I just went ahead and typed in the amount of gold for the food we were going to get and transferred it to her. She verified in her interface. My bag got a little lighter and I heard the clinking of coins around Olga. ¡°Thank you. Enjoy your food when it arrives!¡± She walked back behind the bar and continued wiping down various glasses, which is what she was doing when we got in. Much less of a personal touch but I didn¡¯t really want to advertise that I was holding a bunch of gold. I would have been more than happy to buy the 50% buff food, but I wanted to seem like a pinch-purse, just a little bit. We sat at the table sipping our beers for a while, not saying anything, just enjoying not sitting in a cart and enjoying the warm fireplace. I decided to take a poke through my inventory and see what I had in there. I had the artifacts, a bunch of food, some water in skins, and that was pretty much it. I discussed a couple more things with Antivitz about artifacts and then had a thought for Unwog. ¡°Hey, Unwog. I know what Antivitz does, what did you do in your village?¡± He turned and looked at me with a mouthful of beer. ¡°Hm?¡± he gulped it down quickly. ¡°Most of the Orcs who live on the outside of the village are hunters and trappers, well versed in both. It¡¯s a whole community effort really. We hunt and trap food and use the furs for our clothing,¡± he gestured to himself, ¡°or for furniture covering, or what have you. If we have extras we send trade caravans to one of the cities in Gor to trade pelts and furs for other kinds of food or just sell them off for gold.¡± ¡°Sounds like a simple life, pretty much.¡± ¡°Yeah, it is. Like I said it¡¯s a community effort, so we don¡¯t really receive a monetary income, it¡¯s basically helping the community to have a place to live in the area and interact with other Orcs or passersby.¡± ¡°Yeah, or threaten to chop people¡¯s heads off for digging around in lame dirt¡­¡± I muttered under my breath. ¡°Needless to say it¡¯s a pretty simple life, as you said. My wife and I¡­¡± his eyes widened. ¡°I forgot to tell my wife we were leaving to go adventuring. Crap.¡± ¡°Eh, she¡¯ll get over it.¡± I waved my stein dismissively. ¡°You gotta have some fun with your life man.¡± ¡°No, you don¡¯t understand. She used to be a spy for the previous leader of our lands, the best of the best.¡± I raised an eyebrow at him. ¡°She¡¯ll be able to track me anywhere I go.¡± ¡°Dude, I doubt it. We traveled so many miles away, there is absolutely no way. I¡¯m sure there¡¯s been like five caravans through the area by now or whatnot.¡± I shrugged. ¡°I wouldn¡¯t worry about it man. Relax, drink, enjoy. If she¡¯s as good of a spy or Rogue if you say she is, she should have no trouble providing the stuff for the village like you both typically do.¡± ¡°Well she¡¯s the one who actually does all of the hunting and gathering, I just prepare the carcasses and meat and such.¡± ¡°I¡¯m sure she¡¯ll be fine. Don¡¯t worry about it.¡± I took another sip of ale and our food was delivered to us promptly, and we ate. Soon after, we made to exit the tavern to go back to Ushak. ¡°Alright boy, go ahead and just say ¡°Ushak¡± to the door and we¡¯ll go through it back to Ushak.¡± I did as requested and we headed back through to Ushak. Chapter Twenty We walked back into the open city, our stamina and HP boosted by 50% and our spirits high. ¡°Let¡¯s get over to see Ananaya Zurich.¡± We made for the center of town with the skyscrapers. As we got closer, buildings got more modern, closer to real life. It was almost surreal, seeing people in armor and carrying shields and maces and swords, walking in and out of brick buildings and concrete buildings. There must only be a few people who want to ply their trade for these things in the game, otherwise I feel like there would be a lot more. If I worked as a cement-layer in real life, I sure as hell wouldn¡¯t want to actually work doing that in a game I was supposed to be relaxing in and killing monsters and stuff. Of course people could sell the ways to do these things in-game or use the internet, or sell training services, or a number of other things. We ended up asking a few people for directions, most gave us snooty looks and walked away, but there were some kind people. Plus with Antivitz and Unwog being so high leveled, some people even shied away from their power auras when they let loose. Even I was sent to the ground, my breath having been taken away by their aura when someone got confrontational. But only for an instant. It took us a couple hours to find the correct building, and as it turns out, it was a small concrete building we were directed to. I was also shocked to find that in the middle of all the skyscrapers was an Orc village, almost laid out like Unwog¡¯s village. I asked Antivitz and Unwog why there were mud, straw and stick huts in the middle of an industrial center like this. ¡°Well, I think the original founder of the city wanted his people to still have a place to go home to at the end of the day, so they kept the Orc huts,¡± Unwog answered. ¡°I was very interested in becoming a trader at one point in my life, so I read all I could get my hands on about Orc history and what to expect from people, being an Orc. Turns out it¡¯s not so bad nowadays, but we used to be slaves to Dwarves, Humans and Elves, among other races that were around at the time.¡± Orc children ran past me, looking like they were playing a game of tag. Admittedly, they weren¡¯t smack in the center between like five skyscrapers or something and a bunch of concrete buildings. They were surrounded by a large field of grass and flowers, so it wasn¡¯t that weird. It was just unsettling seeing the skyscrapers and other buildings in the distance while being surrounded by Orc huts since we had to cross through them. To be quite honest, I was preoccupied with my thoughts and hadn¡¯t even noticed the grass we were walking through had changed from the cobblestone we were walking on previously. The gradd blades tickled my toes on my sandals and was long enough to feel on the sides of my feet as well. ¡°I feel like there might be some building restrictions here,¡± I mentioned. ¡°Yes, there are. Typically there are no building restrictions but the land was blessed by some very powerful enchanters and sorcerers, mages and a lot of different magic users who were friends with Usha¡¯lak and wanted to help him preserve his Orcish village while the village¡¯s expansion was happening. So the village can grow wider and bigger, but it¡¯s going to take quite a while to grow to the size of this clearing.¡± Unwog mentioned to me again. It was very interesting to know all these pieces of lore and stuff, even if it didn¡¯t play out to anything in the long run. One thing I was thinking about on the way across the village, was the fact Antivitz never told me his last name, on the way there. I was thinking it¡¯d be something cool like ¡°Rockcrusher¡± or something super Dwarven. ¡°Nope,¡± he said. ¡°It¡¯s Blowhammer.¡± ¡°Well that¡¯s¡­¡± I paused, stifling a laugh. ¡°Kind of cool I guess. At least it has ¡°hammer¡± in it.¡± ¡°It¡¯s my family name, whaddaya want me to do, lad? Change it!? That¡¯s against everything every Dwarf stands for! I take pride in my family name!¡±Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings. ¡°Between our two worlds, family names mean very different things. Where I come from, you can actually change your entire name to something else. Though it¡¯s a pain to do it because you have to change your name on a bunch of governmental forms and stuff like that, get new cards issued and the like. It¡¯s really bothersome so almost nobody does it for their family names, but a lot of people get their first names changed.¡± I shrugged. ¡°It¡¯s more of a vanity thing than anything really, I think.¡± Antivitz nodded. ¡°You Players are weird.¡± I chuckled a bit. We ended up coming up to the doors of Tarqu Industries, and went inside. The doors were framed in iron and had thick glass windows on them, and the iron was unpainted like the rest of the building, so it was just a slate gray color all over the building and doors. The inside of the building was very rich and snooty looking. The walls were marble along with the floor being a marble tile. It was almost disconcerting walking into such a pristine room from the outdoors. There was a single large reception desk at the far wall, across the room from us. We approached the desk and there was a man in a suit and tie sitting on a wooden chair, rolling around to different paperwork on the desk around him. ¡°Hello,¡± I said. ¡°We¡¯re here to see Ananaya Zurich.¡± The man, who turned out to be an Elf so he looked extremely young, turned toward us, and smiled with pearly white teeth. ¡°Oh, really? What for?¡± This was said using an extremely condescending tone. It was obvious that he didn¡¯t think we were here to see the CEO. But then again I was clad in but a helmet and burlap sacks, and a set of sandals. Maybe I should have stopped by the Auction House before we came here. We are, in the capital, after all. ¡°No need for the fucking tone, idiot.¡± I replied. I took out the letter from my bag and I handed it to him. He read the note. ¡°Obviously a forgery. Don¡¯t come back until you have a reason for me to speak to you-¡± he was cut off by Unwog reaching over the desk, which was puny compared to Unwog, and lifted the secretary up and brought him to literally in front of his face. The letter dropped from his hands as Unwog picked him up. It was like watching a giant person pick up a doll. I picked up the paper and stowed it in my bag again. ¡°Listen here you sack of crap, we travelled a long way to see this lady for whatever my friend needs, so - urk!¡± Unwog dropped the secretary to the ground and fell to the ground, still in the same pose he was in. He didn¡¯t even make a grunt as he hit the ground. He seemed to be frozen, like a statue. I inspected Unwog and found out he had been hit with a spell, that gave the status debuff of: Statue V Frozen, unable to move or react to anything. Duration: One Hour Welp, that¡¯s a bummer, I thought. I appreciated the gesture from Unwog though. ¡°Well, that¡¯s what he gets for manhandling me.¡± The secretary dusted himself off and walked back behind the desk. ¡°Yeah, bet you¡¯d like someone to manhandle your stupid Elf ass.¡± I muttered under my breath. ¡°Come on Antivitz, help me drag this lug out of here.¡± Antivitz chuckled a bit at the whole thing but assisted me in dragging Unwog about ten feet before I saw the Elf rapidly using his interface, a look of panic crossing his features. I smiled smugly and continued dragging my friend away towards the doors. Something happened that I¡¯m sure someone saw upstairs, I thought to myself. That guy¡¯s going to get it! Hah! We made it to the doors before the Elf cried out, ¡°Wait! Ananaya will see you now!¡± ¡°Nah, we¡¯re good. Thanks!¡± I waved to him and we exited, dragging Unwog out with us into the noonday sun. As we left, I heard screaming, presumably from the Elf. Not my problem, I thought with a grimace as we pulled Unwog farther away from the doors to the edge of the dirt road that led to the building. Chapter Twenty-One We walked back into the open city, our stamina and HP boosted by 50% and our spirits high. ¡°Let¡¯s get over to see Ananaya Zurich.¡± We made for the center of town with the skyscrapers. As we got closer, buildings got more modern, closer to real life. It was almost surreal, seeing people in armor and carrying shields and maces and swords, walking in and out of brick buildings and concrete buildings. There must only be a few people who want to ply their trade for these things in the game, otherwise I feel like there would be a lot more. If I worked as a cement-layer in real life, I sure as hell wouldn¡¯t want to actually work doing that in a game I was supposed to be relaxing in and killing monsters and stuff. Of course people could sell the ways to do these things in-game or use the internet, or sell training We ended up asking a few people for directions, most gave us snooty looks and walked away, but there were some kind people. Plus with Antivitz and Unwog being so high leveled, some people even shied away from their power auras when they let loose. Even I was sent to the ground, my breath having been taken away by their aura when someone got confrontational. But only for an instant. It took us a couple hours to find the correct building, and as it turns out, it was a small concrete building we were directed to. I was also shocked to find that in the middle of all the skyscrapers was an Orc village, almost laid out like Unwog¡¯s village. I asked Antivitz and Unwog why there were mud, straw and stick huts in the middle of an industrial center like this. ¡°Well, I think the original founder of the city wanted his people to still have a place to go home to at the end of the day, so they kept the Orc huts,¡± Unwog answered. ¡°I was very interested in becoming a trader at one point in my life, so I read all I could get my hands on about Orc history and what to expect from people, being an Orc. Turns out it¡¯s not so bad nowadays, but we used to be slaves to Dwarves, Humans and Elves, among other races that were around at the time.¡± Orc children ran past me, looking like they were playing a game of tag. Admittedly, they weren¡¯t smack in the center between like five skyscrapers or something and a bunch of concrete buildings. They were surrounded by a large field of grass and flowers, so it wasn¡¯t that weird. It was just unsettling seeing the skyscrapers and other buildings in the distance while being surrounded by Orc huts since we had to cross through them. To be quite honest, I was preoccupied with my thoughts and hadn¡¯t even noticed the grass we were walking through had changed from the cobblestone we were walking on previously. The gradd blades tickled my toes on my sandals and was long enough to feel on the sides of my feet as well. ¡°I feel like there might be some building restrictions here,¡± I mentioned. ¡°Yes, there are. Typically there are no building restrictions but the land was blessed by some very powerful enchanters and sorcerers, mages and a lot of different magic users who were friends with Usha¡¯lak and wanted to help him preserve his Orcish village while the village¡¯s expansion was happening. So the village can grow wider and bigger, but it¡¯s going to take quite a while to grow to the size of this clearing.¡± Unwog mentioned to me again. It was very interesting to know all these pieces of lore and stuff, even if it didn¡¯t play out to anything in the long run. One thing I was thinking about on the way across the village, was the fact Antivitz never told me his last name, on the way there. I was thinking it¡¯d be something cool like ¡°Rockcrusher¡± or something super Dwarven. ¡°Nope,¡± he said. ¡°It¡¯s Blowhammer.¡± ¡°Well that¡¯s¡­¡± I paused, stifling a laugh. ¡°Kind of cool I guess. At least it has ¡°hammer¡± in it.¡± ¡°It¡¯s my family name, whaddaya want me to do, lad? Change it!? That¡¯s against everything every Dwarf stands for! I take pride in my family name!¡±Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings. ¡°Between our two worlds, family names mean very different things. Where I come from, you can actually change your entire name to something else. Though it¡¯s a pain to do it because you have to change your name on a bunch of governmental forms and stuff like that, get new cards issued and the like. It¡¯s really bothersome so almost nobody does it for their family names, but a lot of people get their first names changed.¡± I shrugged. ¡°It¡¯s more of a vanity thing than anything really, I think.¡± Antivitz nodded. ¡°You Players are weird.¡± I chuckled a bit. We ended up coming up to the doors of Tarqu Industries, and went inside. The doors were framed in iron and had thick glass windows on them, and the iron was unpainted like the rest of the building, so it was just a slate gray color all over the building and doors. The inside of the building was very rich and snooty looking. The walls were marble along with the floor being a marble tile. It was almost disconcerting walking into such a pristine room from the outdoors. There was a single large reception desk at the far wall, across the room from us. We approached the desk and there was a man in a suit and tie sitting on a wooden chair, rolling around to different paperwork on the desk around him. ¡°Hello,¡± I said. ¡°We¡¯re here to see Ananaya Zurich.¡± The man, who turned out to be an Elf so he looked extremely young, turned toward us, and smiled with pearly white teeth. ¡°Oh, really? What for?¡± This was said using an extremely condescending tone. It was obvious that he didn¡¯t think we were here to see the CEO. But then again I was clad in but a helmet and burlap sacks, and a set of sandals. Maybe I should have stopped by the Auction House before we came here. We are, in the capital, after all. ¡°No need for the fucking tone, idiot.¡± I replied. I took out the letter from my bag and I handed it to him. He read the note. ¡°Obviously a forgery. Don¡¯t come back until you have a reason for me to speak to you-¡± he was cut off by Unwog reaching over the desk, which was puny compared to Unwog, and lifted the secretary up and brought him to literally in front of his face. The letter dropped from his hands as Unwog picked him up. It was like watching a giant person pick up a doll. I picked up the paper and stowed it in my bag again. ¡°Listen here you sack of cow dung, we travelled a long way to see this lady for whatever my friend needs, so - urk!¡± Unwog dropped the secretary to the ground and fell to the ground, still in the same pose he was in. He didn¡¯t even make a grunt as he hit the ground. He seemed to be frozen, like a statue. I inspected Unwog and found out he had been hit with a spell, that gave the status debuff of: Statue V Frozen, unable to move or react to anything. Duration: One Hour Welp, that¡¯s a bummer, I thought. I appreciated the gesture from Unwog though. ¡°Well, that¡¯s what he gets for manhandling me.¡± The secretary dusted himself off and walked back behind the desk. ¡°Yeah, bet you¡¯d like someone to manhandle your stupid Elf ass.¡± I muttered under my breath. ¡°Come on Antivitz, help me drag this lug out of here.¡± Antivitz chuckled a bit at the whole thing but assisted me in dragging Unwog about ten feet before I saw the Elf rapidly using his interface, a look of panic crossing his features. I smiled smugly and continued dragging my friend away towards the doors. Something happened that I¡¯m sure someone saw upstairs, I thought to myself. That guy¡¯s going to get it! Hah! We made it to the doors before the Elf cried out, ¡°Wait! Ananaya will see you now!¡± ¡°Nah, we¡¯re good. Thanks!¡± I waved to him and we exited, dragging Unwog out with us into the noonday sun. As we left, I heard screaming, presumably from the Elf. Not my problem, I thought with a grimace as we pulled Unwog farther away from the doors to the edge of the dirt road that led to the building. The End - For Now Please read the Pre-chapter author note. Thanks for all the support and comments! Remember, not every LitRPG book is the same or is copying off each other unless it''s word for word plagarism. I''ll post the beginning of my re-written chapter 1 just for posting''s sake so I can get this announcement up. _____________________________________ I love MMORPGs. My entire family loved MMORPGs. The very essence of our household was filled with MMORPG memorabilia, from games released in the ¡®90s to the most recent VRMMORPGs used in 2050. It is 2051, my name is Zack Fitz, and I caused the greatest change to the massively played online game called SwordGate. Swordgate was played by hundreds of millions of people around the world daily, if not billions. My entire family had VRPods. They were top of the line, all the time, due to my parents¡¯ corporations in SwordGate. The currency of SwordGate had a 1:1 translation rate between worlds, so any money made in SwordGate was money made in real life, if you so chose. However, the rate at which money was given out in SwordGate for quests and the like, loot, etc, was way over-inflated, so people ended up getting a decent bit of money just by playing the game, not gathering materials or using the auction house in-game, etc, so it stimulated the real life economy very well, in my opinion. My family watched that kind of thing all the time. Of course, it could be a lot worse. The world was broken down into three kinds of people: The Land-Dwellers, the ones who couldn¡¯t afford a VRPod and/or used the VRPod Cafes; who worked the menial jobs, the Middle Class, which was where my family was located. Decently wealthy but straddling the line (but getting farther from it every day thanks to business smarts), and the Ultra-Rich, who had no worries about money whatsoever in their lives, period.You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story. And so the world turns, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. I was lucky to have such a blessed family, but as it turns out, my family was grooming me to become a very large player in the SwordGate world, and between their rival corporations, having the chance to take over one of them after one of them ¡°left this world¡±. And I don¡¯t mean die, here. Well, I do, but not in the same ¡°death¡± sense. I mean literally ¡°leave this world¡±, as in ¡°their mind entering the game forever as their character¡± kind of thing. It was happening a lot with the newer versions of the VRPods where the Sigma Studios¡¯ servers were making imprints of people¡¯s brains and directly translating them to the servers. I agree with the fact that that turns people into literally digital data and their lives are at the whim of a switch, but that¡¯s their decision. But, that was their decision and not anyone else¡¯s, even though there were groups who protested that sort of thing, a lot of the people this happened to had no say in it. You see, after some time in the game, your brain was fully mapped by the VRPod that injected nanites into your bloodstream to map your brain. Infinitesimally small robots mapping people¡¯s brains. And Sigma Studios made sure everyone knew this was happening to their bodies as well, but no one really cared, because the SwordGate Experience?, as they had trademarked the ¡°phrase¡±, if you will. No company was as close to putting out something like SwordGate as Sigma Studios was, and they did it easily. With society flailing around to play SwordGate and get rid of their jobs in real life, the costs of VRPods were lessening every year, and soon, the world would be encapsulated by SwordGate. But, for now, the masses wished to play SwordGate. Even ¡°cafes¡± and specific living spaces were designated to be mass living spaces with tons of VRPods for people to contribute rent/bill money to. It was crazy how much money people were getting to create these cheap spaces for people to VRgame in. The world would soon be dropped into chaos, but for now, it¡¯s just people playing games. _________________________ This was just a rough draft of Chapter 1 and will be rewritten again, I''m not happy with it at all. I look forward to everyone''s support in the future.