“Where would you like to go first?” Lina asked as she gently took the reins from Aegis, seeing him still awestruck as they passed through a busy market street filled to the brim with various shops. Through the shop windows and stands out front Aegis could see all manner of potions, books, equipment, pottery, and food. The smells of the food were entrancing, baked pastries mixed with fresh fruits and spices, and the loud bustling of people negotiating and peddling their wares made it hard for him to even hear Lina.

“Uhm, first the registry, I think. So I know how much it costs.” Aegis replied.

“Okay.” Lina nodded. She took over steering so that Aegis could take in the scenery freely, and at no point did his eyes or mouth close. He took a particular liking to a blacksmith shop that had iron weapons on display out front, noticing the prices were all significantly higher than the copper stuff back in Orm, and the shop had quite a lot of players and NPCs bartering to buy from the shopkeeper.

Eventually the wagon came to a stop outside of the registry building, a large town hall built at the edge of an open townsquare. A fountain sat in the middle of the townsquare with a large open circular paved area surrounding it, filled with benches and large groomed trees. It was a gathering place for players and he heard the shouts of many groups looking for members.

“Need a healer for the Shargoth Ruins, level 45 or higher please! Cleric preferred!”

“Looking for 3 body guards to escort my wagon to Viddel, paying 500 gold per person. Please be strong enough to kill Viddel Bandits!”

“Can any Enchanters enchant my boots?”

The voices shouted over each other in a weirdly respectful fashion, as if each person waited their turn to call out what players they were looking to join them. When Aegis turned to look over them, he saw a level 20 fighter player call out that he was looking for a priest player to join his group, and as he said it, he and Aegis made eye contact. Aegis awkwardly pretended to not hear him and hopped off the wagon.

“Be right back!” He said to Lina as he took the deed out of his inventory. He marched into the Registration building filled with anticipation, a spring in his step.

A few minutes later, Aegis walked out of the registration looking defeated, dragging his feet out the door.

“H-how much?” Lina asked as she saw his expression.

“Forty thousand gold. For a ruined keep and an empty field in the middle of nowhere. You wouldn’t have happened to have kept your gold? Y’know, before you rerolled?” Aegis asked as he slowly climbed back onto the wagon.

“N-no… you lose everything. I didn’t have that much anyway, my guild put all the members' gold in the guild bank.” Lina replied, trying to sound as sympathetic as she could. “I bet all your copper gear will sell for a lot though, and the drops from the dungeon, don’t give up!” She tried to encourage him. “Let’s stop by the Auction House, it's the best way to sell stuff en-masse quickly.” Lina pulled the reins to steer the wagon out of the town square.

“You’re right, I crafted a lot of stuff, it’s mostly above 20% quality. If I can get at least 100 gold for each piece, I should be okay!” Aegis tried to cheer himself up. Lina avoided eye contact and smiled nervously as he said this. They arrived outside of the auction hall, a tall wooden building with 5 front doors all wedged open to allow the ease of traffic in and out of the building - players of all levels were coming and going.

“Be right back!” Aegis said to Lina, he tallied up his weapons in the wagons quickly in his head, combined the number with his inventory stash, and headed into the Auction Hall with a spring in his step.

A few minutes later, Aegis walked out of the Auction hall looking completely devastated. He barely made it back to the wagon. Lina didn’t need to ask what had happened.

“It’s not fair. I already grinded copper for almost a week straight, but I can’t smelt Iron without building a forge on my own land.” Aegis complained.

“Y-you could always use the public forge in Kordas. It’s bigger than the one in Orm and it's strong enough to smelt iron.” Lina tried to cheer him up.

“Really?” Aegis asked, hope slowly returning to him.

“I’ll show you!” Lina said encouragingly, once again pulling on the reins. After making their way down a few more busy streets they arrived at the crafting district of Kordas. The air was filled with pillars of smoke rising out of the various crafting buildings - rather than a single craftsman guildhall, there was a building that specialized in each type of craft, and each building was twice the size of the craftsman guildhall in Orm. Aegis was in awe, they passed by a statue of a gigantic loom that sat outside the weaving and sewing hall, and in the distance he could see a gigantic forge billowing out dark grey smoke from the top.

As the wagon got closer to the gigantic forge, Aegis spotted a large crowd of people formed into a line outside of the structure built up around the forge, the line had at least 100 other players sitting in it, and that was just the amount Aegis could see on the outside of the forge building. Lina pulled the wagon up worriedly, looking to see Aegis’ expression of impending dread.

“E-excuse me, what is this line for?” Aegis called down to a dark skinned orc player waiting patiently in the line.

“This line? It’s the line to use the forge, for melting iron ingots. Only 300 ore at a time, then you go to the back of the line. It’s an honor system, but it's fair.”

“H-how long does it usually take to get from the back to the front?”

“Eh, when it’s not so busy like right now, probably an hour or two. It’s a good time to watch a livestream. Oh hey, look, Hi Mom!” The orc suddenly noticed that Aegis was streaming and mockingly waved to the camera icon. Aegis turned from the orc and looked at Lina with sad puppy dog eyes.

“It’s okay, we’ll just do a bit more grinding, then we can get your land registered no problem!” Lina tried to remain positive.

“Maybe Ruffily has her land already bought…” Aegis mumbled to himself as he pulled up his friends list and started communications with her.

“Aegis? Who is this? Woof!” Ruffily answered confused. Aegis realized that she didn’t know him by this name yet, he was suddenly hit with a wave of panic.

“I, uh, uhm, you don’t remember me? You uh, you helped me out awhile back in Orm.” Aegis answered nervously, hoping she wouldn’t figure it out.

“Hmm… Nope, sorry, Woof! I guess I have bad memory!” Ruffily replied embarrassed. “But that’s okay, did you need help with something?” She asked. Aegis let out a sigh or relief.

“Y-yeah… I remember you said you were saving up for land, how is that going?” Aegis asked her.

“Hmm, I am about a quarter of the way there.” She replied excitedly. “Sounds like you just saw the busy Kordas Crafting district, huh? Woof!” She said with a giggle, noticing Aegis’ friends list displayed his location.

“Yep.” Aegis groaned. “I crafted a bunch of copper stuff, but it doesn’t sell for much… is there any way to make more money off of crafts?” Aegis asked desperately.

“Hm… after it’s crafted, the quality is set in stone… I suppose you could enchant it, that’d boost it up, but low level enchants won’t do much, a lot of enchanters use low level gear to level their enchanting, then they put their good enchants on high level stuff. Woof!” Ruffily replied.

“O-okay. I guess I’ll check that out.” Aegis sounded defeated once more.

“Good luck!” Ruffily encouraged him before cutting the communications.

“Who were you talking to?” Lina asked curiously.

“Oh, just a friendly crafter I met from Orm. I forgot, but it turns out even after re-customization, we keep our friends list. You should make sure no one on your list sees your new name.” Aegis warned her as he fiddled around with his interface a bit. Lina panicked and opened up her friends list to see all her old guildmates, some of which had already sent messages and voice communication requests. Without reading or replying to any of them she quickly removed them all from her friends list so that only Aegis and her parents remained.

“Ruffily said I could enchant the stuff, but, it probably won’t help much. Let’s head to the Shrine of Eirene at least to get the quest done.” Aegis shrugged.

“Okay.” Lina nodded, tugging the reins to make the horses trot forward once more. After a time they arrived in the Temple District of Kordas. In it they saw grand structures built in tribute to the various good-aligned gods of The Shattered World online. There were fantastical statues depicting great mighty beasts and beings, some that Aegis recognized from common mythology in the real world, while others he’d never seen before in his life.

This section of the city was much quieter, and nearly all of the players and NPCs were dressed in vestments and robes bearing various symbols to represent the divine being they worshipped. Aegis spotted a small temple out of the way of the main roads that had depictions of the yellow star etched into its stonework. Out front stood the statue of a thin, long blonde haired goddess wearing tattered robes and a band of cloth wrapped around her eyes, her hands reaching up to the heavens. He noticed an abnormal amount of foot traffic around the temple despite its relatively small size, and many of the people around it were not dressed in vestments.

As the wagon pulled up, Aegis spotted a pathway beside the temple building, it led into a beautifully lush green garden surrounded by tall hedges that separated it from the busy streets. An archway of stone above the path was the lone entry way through the hedges into the garden, where from the outside Aegis could see the statue of Eirene far into the garden, the stone pathway wrapping around a wonderful fountain and several beds of colorful flowers before arriving at the statue. The garden was filled with other players sitting in pairs on the benches or walking together holding hands casually. Aegis hopped off the wagon and Lina looked at the garden scene nervously.

“I’m a little bit suspicious of this quest, it seems too easy to just go in and pray for two skills. Would you mind coming just in case?” Aegis asked Lina. Her face went bright red.

“A-a-are y-you sure?” She stuttered, Aegis wasn’t really sure why but he was used to Lina acting a bit strange.

“Yeah, it shouldn’t take long.” Aegis shrugged.

“O-okay.” She nervously set the reins down and stepped off the wagon to walk beside him, and the two stepped through the archway together into the garden. Once inside, it was as if the sounds of the busy city were muted and instead they heard only the calming sounds of the fountain water spraying and the birds chirping in the tall trees scattered about the garden. It was calm and relaxing, though still quite populated despite the late hour. A single thought crept into Aegis’ mind as he looked at the moonlight reflecting in the fountain water, that this garden was a bit romantic, and in that moment he started to realize what he was surrounded by.

Every other player in the garden, or NPC, was there with a partner. Not all of the opposite sex, but all sitting romantically close together, some holding hands, other embracing each other, and even making out on the benches around them. It only then dawned on him why Lina had been acting so nervous, this garden and shrine to Eirene was a popular dating spot. Aegis didn’t have the heart to admit his mistake, he looked to Lina’s face briefly to see her staring at her feet, face bright red.

Aegis concluded she must think he was a complete idiot, tricking her to come into this shrine with him because of his quest. He wasn’t sure if he should apologize, or just act oblivious to the situation and pretend he didn’t realize his mistake. He took such a long time thinking of it in awkward silence that they closed in on the actual shrine, but they were unable to approach as a group of players had gathered in front of it.

A female elf and a male Demi-human with fox ears were dressed in fancy attire, a crowd of onlookers watching as a priest NPC stood behind them giving a speech. It looked as if a small wedding ceremony was taking place, so Aegis and Lina stopped a good distance away to not disrupt it.

“Players can get married?” Aegis asked in a whisper.

“Y-yes. To other players or NPCs, just like in real life. A lot of players do it just for the bonus though…” Lina replied, she seemed to lose her shyness whenever she could talk about the game, Aegis noticed.

“What bonus?” He asked quietly.

“When you are married to someone and you are partied together, you’ll both gain a 25% experience bonus. It’s expensive to end a marriage though to discourage people from marrying everytime they join a new party.” Lina explained. Aegis didn’t reply immediately, he thought about it a bit as he watched the ceremony unfold. He could tell just by their facial expressions that the Elf and Demihuman in front of him were not just getting married for the experience bonus, they both looked genuinely in love with one another.

“I bet that’s what happened.” Aegis mumbled to himself. “Probably, with his guildmate.... While my mom was busy working all day, he was in here doing stuff like this.” Aegis clenched his fists, Lina looked to see anger in his eyes.

“It’s pretty common nowadays, I guess…” Lina mumbled, not quite sure what to say. “25% experience is a lot... so they play together all day... and then...” She got quieter and quieter as Aegis didn’t reply. “Are you okay?” She eventually asked, seeing him getting angrier and angrier as he was lost in his own thoughts, but her question brought him back.

“Y-yeah. Yeah, I’m fine.” He gritted his teeth, but a brief look towards Lina at her concerned expression snapped him out of it, and he relaxed his face.

“I… I noticed something, the way you are playing... Most of the time new players, they’re just trying stuff out and having fun, but you are playing more serious and calculated. At first I thought, it’s just the way you are, because it looks like you are having fun sometimes, but…” She paused, watching his expression carefully, she could see him restraining his emotions to try and look calm. “Is there another reason?”

Aegis couldn’t hold eye contact with her, instead he looked back at the joyful ceremony unfolding in front of them and let out a sigh. He hadn’t told anyone yet about the real reason he’d been playing, but he thought on how Lina had come to help him with Keldan, and soon enough she’d find out. In the spirit of not using people like his father did, his own resolve prompted his honesty. He clicked the microphone button on his stream multiple times until it was fully muted.

“Oi, Shinji. I thought you were going to be telling the next Lord of the Rings story.” Tommy shouted at Shinji through their voice call. While Tommy was outside of a Simbox in their office, Shinji was inside one, busy editing away at Aegis’ livestream.

“It’s just the beginning.” Shinji replied as he worked to edit quickly, barely paying attention to Tommy.

“Just the beginning? He’s got 40 viewers right now.” Tommy replied angrily.

“So what? 40 is great for his second day.” Shinji retorted.

“That’s not the problem, it’s the demographic. 30 of the viewers are women. You’re telling a love story or something?” Tommy groaned.

“Eh, I’ve still got faith in the kid.” Shinji replied.

“Well stop hogging Hae-won, I’ve got a 1k viewer stream that needs her.” Tommy replied annoyed.

“What do you mean, hogging Hae-won? I haven’t spoken to her all day.” Shinji grumbled back confused. Tommy ended the communications with Shinji, pressed a few buttons on his wrist, and started a conversation with Hae-won.

“Hae-won, you said Shinji is making you work on the Aegis stream, right?” Tommy asked her.

“Yeah yeah, shhh, I’m trying to lip read to figure out what they’re saying.” Hae-won shushed Tommy as she watched the muted stream of Aegis talking with Lina.

“Shinji said you’re lying. Get your ass off the Aegis stream and work on Umak’s stream.” Tommy shouted at her angrily.

“Bzzzz!” She buzzed him off angrily. “I need to find out if she’s going to confess! This is top quality teen drama stuff!” Hae-won forcefully ended the call from Tommy.

“The truth is, David, or I should say Makaroth I guess, he has this self-importance about him, he thinks he's better than me and everyone else because of this game. He told me that I’d never be able to be as good as him. He bet me that if I ever did surpass him, he’d delete his account and his stream. While it’s true I am having fun playing with you and Darkshot, that’s the real reason I want to play this game.” Aegis paused as Lina watched his expression carefully as he looked up at the moon.

“I want to knock him down off his pedestal and prove that he’s nothing special… but I don’t want to stoop down to his level to do it. That’s why, I’m telling you… so I’d understand if you’d rather play without me. Something like that probably won’t be much fun for you, hanging around me while I’m trying to get to the top just to spite that guy. But whenever I think about how he treated my mom, and how everyone praises him now like he’s some sort of hero, I can’t help it, I just get so pissed off.” Aegis clenched his fists again.

“I-its okay. I thought it might be something like that.” Lina replied, trying to calm him. “I don’t mind. I was in a serious guild before, so, it’s nothing new to me… it’s a lot more fun now to play seriously, with you... I…” Lina went nervously quiet again for a moment. “I want to help you. Let’s go to the top together, and have fun doing it.” She smiled at him in an attempt to cheer him up.”

“Really? After hearing all that, you still want to keep playing with me?” Aegis looked at her.

“Yeah, of course. You can’t get to the top alone. I can be the deadly assassin, and you can be the spiteful healer.” She smiled. The ceremony in front of them ended and the players began to spread out.

“O-okay…” Aegis unmuted his stream. “How do we start the marriage process then?” He asked with a serious expression.

“W-w-w-w-w-w-w- you-. You w-want to get m-m-married?” Lina’s face of surprise turned cherry red. It was the first time Aegis saw her act like she did in real life while inside the game world.

“Y-yeah, well, I mean, for the experience bonus. Since we’re going to be together from now on, I mean… I can’t imagine marrying anyone else right now, better to get the experience bonus sooner rather than later…” Aegis was still focused on Makaroth and not realizing how Lina was interpreting his words.

“C-can’t imagine anyone else…” Lina mumbled to herself in disbelief.

“I mean, if you want to.” Aegis finally turned to see her face lit up. “I don’t want to force you and use you or anything like that, like… you know. So only if you want to. You don’t have to.” Aegis tried to backpedal, but it had the opposite effect.

“Y-yes, I do! I m-m-m-mean, it’s a logical decision. T-t-to get married. S-since we’ll b-b-be together. F-f-f-f-f-f-or leveling.” She managed to get the words out.

“I’ll ask that priest.” Aegis walked forward to speak with the Eirene priest that had just finished the previous ceremony. Lina took the time to catch her breath, fanning herself while looking in the opposite direction. She didn’t have long before Aegis walked back to her.

“Priest says it's 500 gold to Register our marriage. But 50 000 gold to divorce. Kind of lopsided prices there.” Aegis commented as he opened his inventory. “I’ve got enough, so we could do it now. I mean, it won’t be fancy, I don’t have any good looking gear or anything, or a ring…” Aegis looked around his inventory, seeing all of his crafted stuff was suited more for combat.

“R-r-r-right now? Isn’t this going f-f-f-” She stopped herself as Aegis eyed another player couple walking towards the priest with several others trailing behind them, they looked as if they were planning to get married.

“Let’s do it fast so we don’t have to wait for those guys.” Aegis grabbed her hand and gently tugged her towards the priest NPC, she didn’t resist much. “Here’s the gold.” Aegis took 500 gold out of his inventory and handed it to the old balding NPC wearing Eirene vestments, holding a holy book to Eirene with the star symbol on its front. He took the gold and looked at the two of them with judgemental eyes.

“You’d like to do the ceremony right now, wearing that?” He asked them.

“Yup.” Aegis replied back, annoyed at the NPC’s tone.

“And you as well, young miss, are you prepared to swear yourself to this young man?” The NPC asked her. Lina immediately got hit by a mental stress warning, prompting her to log out. She ignored it and nodded frantically at the NPC.

“Very well.” The old man sighed at them, shaking his head. He grabbed them both by their shoulders to position them appropriately, facing each other, then stood at the foot of the shrine and began reading words from the holy book of Eirene. It was a boring mundane speech about the light of Eirene watching over their love, but the more often the priest NPC said the word love, the more Aegis began to feel awkwardly guilty in what was happening, as Lina refused to look him in the eyes, her eyes fixated on her wiggling feet.

“By the power vested within me by the Goddess Eirene and the Kingdom of Kalmoore, I now declare you husband, and wife.” The priest finished, and as he did, a swirl of radiant light magic came out of his holy book and wrapped around Lina and Aegis, eventually settling into the ground.

Congratulations! You are now bound to Lina in a contract of marriage. For more information on marriage contracts, click here.

“You may now kiss the bride.” The priest finished. Lina got another mental stress notification, and she frantically hit ignore, looking up to see Aegis’ face was now also bright red.

“Ah, that isn’t necessary, right? The contract’s active.” Aegis protested.

“I suppose not, but it’s tradition.” The priest glared at him.

“W-we’re not fans of public displays.” Aegis replied. “Besides, look at this lovely couple, they’re waiting their turn. Don’t want to hold things up.” Aegis motioned to the other group that had appeared, much more properly dressed for the occasion.

“Very well. I wish you both a happy marriage.” The priest reluctantly bowed to them politely. Aegis and Lina shuffled away from the priest towards the large shrine behind him, made up of a giant statue to Eirene surrounded by bright yellow and blue flowers, a small elevated altar of stone at the base of the statue with a pot filled with lit incense. As they walked to it, they both went completely quiet.

“L-look, there’s the bonus. Now we’ll level up even faster.” Aegis said excitedly as he noticed the marriage buff on his interface, granting him 25% experience. It also denoted that he could see more detailed information about his partner’s status, but he didn’t look into it. Lina still didn’t reply.

“S-sorry, I guess I did that a bit hastily, I just, you know, figured…”

“N-no, it’s okay… it was a good idea.” Lina mumbled back.

“You’re not mad?” He asked worriedly, seeing she still wouldn’t look him in the eyes.

“N-no, I’m not mad, I’m h-h-h-...” she couldn’t get the last word out.

“Just don’t tell Darkshot, he’ll probably get the wrong idea.” Aegis said this, but a quick motioning of Lina to his live streaming icon reminded him that Darkshot likely already saw. “Oh, yeah. Darkshot, don’t get the wrong idea.” Aegis shouted to no one. “Okay. good. I feel a lot better now.” Aegis took a deep breath. “Let me do this prayer thing and finish this quest, then we can get out of here.” Aegis said, Lina nodding back at him.