I actually ran into a couple of poor bastards fighting slimes on my way back. Almost all of them had half-melted swords or just hilts at this point. There was one girl near the anteroom who had a mop that was surprisingly effective. I looked at the name above her head ‘Katenip’, might have to watch that one. As I passed by, I said to her, “Knock out the cores and they die instantly.” Before she could respond, I had passed her and was climbing up the ladder.

Walking into the guild, it was now full of players looking at the various wands, staffs, and magical trinkets on display. There was also a small line to talk to the no longer bored receptionist. In fact, the poor bastard looked fried from all the people bothering him. After waiting a few minutes in line, I got to present the poor man with my slime cores, small grey stones the size of a marble, and turn in my quest.

“Wow, you are the first to turn these in today, I really didn’t expect you back so soon. Or at all.” The man said, muttering the last bit to himself.

Okay, I know I might not look like much, hell I hadn’t even gone to the Adventurer’s Guild to get a pack and expand my inventory from the 5-slot belt pouch you start with yet. Still, just cause I look unprepared and broke doesn’t mean he should judge me… okay, I really don’t care about this guy, I don’t even know his name. Guess I’ll ignore it. Oh hell, he is still talking to me.

“-take this to the man up the back stairs and he will teach you the basics of using mana, oh and here is the book for the basic spell Mana Bolt.” He finishes saying.

He hands me a small leather-bound book and a blue wooden chip with a rune on it.

“Thanks, have a nice day.” I say and walk right out of the building, ignoring the other players asking how I killed the slimes so fast.

Quest- Clear the Sewers Completed!

+200 EXP

Mage Classes have been unlocked!

Apprentice Mage Class Unlocked!

Elemental Affinities Unlocked!

There we go. Let’s check those to be sure. Open Affinities Tab.

AFFINITIES

TIME

2

FIRE

2

WIND

2

EARTH

2

WATER

2

Wait, WHAT! Time? Where the fuck did that come from…. shit. Somehow the game knows I have some connection to time, maybe residual energies from whatever sent me back or something. I don’t know what this means, and that scares the shit out of me. I’ve never heard of a time affinity, Space, Void, even Chaos I know how to get, although the last two are very dangerous to mess with. Time though, even though it is just at 2 the fact it exists…. Fuck, I can’t deal with this now. Maybe it will give me a good class unlock, though.

“Class Options,” I say.

Apprentice Mage

Elemental Initiate

Okay that is still what I expected. Let’s check on the Elemental Initiate.

Elemental Initiate

The beginning of the road to mastering the elements. You have attuned yourself to the basic 4 and shown rudimentary mana control, step forward on your journey towards mastery.

+8 Int, +6 Wis, +2 Con per Level

Nice a solid Tier 2 class. In the future people would separate classes based on how many stats they gave total, 1-10 was tier 1, 11-20 tier 2, etc. The Elemental Initiate was above average for a Tier 2, especially for how relatively easy to get it was. 16 stats and all beneficial to your average mage, the highest tier 2 I knew of was also one of the stupidest classes I knew of. It was a pure fighter class that gave plus 3 to everything and 5 to charisma at each level. The Aspirant Hero class was also one of the most convoluted classes to qualify for that anyone had seen, some people used to try to qualify for it as an achievement. Almost no one actually took the damn thing since the only class anyone had found that it could become was a tier 4 class that was almost as hard to get and had only average skills. The hero class was harder to get than most tier 3 or 4 classes, for god’s sake. Technically, going to a tier 8 class from 0 would be as difficult as getting the Aspirant Hero class and evolving it to the Novice Paragon, which even 20 years in the future was still a dead end as far as anyone knew.

My Main Class before was Tier 13, the Dreadknight Magister of the Broken Plains class was truly powerful, but the buildup to it took way too long and kept one far too weak at the beginning. No one would bother listening to me unless I could show I knew what I was doing. Some requirements were also things I would never want to go through again. It was a path of loss and darkness, powerful but not worth the price by any means.

As nice as the path of the Elementalist was, I’m sure I can do better, hell I’ve only completed one class unlock quest and don’t have access to any hybrid classes yet.

I guess next I should do the warrior quest. Like the mage quest unlocks elemental affinities, the warrior one lets you access weapon proficiencies. In my opinion, it’s the easiest for the noobs to do since it comes with a babysitter.

I made my way down the central street and turned toward the Metal District, easy as hell to find, just follow that infernal banging sound. The area of Cloudburn that houses all the forges, smithies, and workshops, was where the warrior’s guild made its home. Probably to be close enough to get replacements fast when they broke their gear training. Unlike the mage’s guild, the warriors weren’t tucked into a shop, okay to be fair that only looked like a shop and it was only the novice entrance, so by all rights it shouldn’t even be called the mage’s guild. Still, the meatheads had a goddamn arena that butted up to the city wall and various support buildings. This makes them look a lot more impressive to the noobs.

Instead of one line and a solitary receptionist, there are 5 people just dedicated to assigning the intro quest, hell they are even doing it in groups. When I get to the head of the line, the harried-looking woman just shoves a flyer in my hand and points me toward a corner.

“That group leaves in five minutes. Don’t die.” She gives me a gentle shove to get me moving faster.

Wow, haven’t seen someone look that overworked since PrincessQT was trying to get the Cat Shepard class. That was hilarious. Well...it was until he evolved it into Hellcat Sovereign and set flaming ghost lions on all our asses. Good times.

I dutifully went to my new group and accepted the quest.

Quest – Boar Training Accepted!

Sadly, I couldn’t rush through this one alone, but I could try to maximize the benefits from it.

I looked around at my group mates, three guys, and a girl. Named EpicDave, WokWay, WonderJim, and LadyOfTheLake respectively. They all had the basic adventurer pack and travel clothes that were free at the guild, I might stop by after this to nab a set.

“Hi, nice to meet you all I’m Lazarus. How are you all liking the game so far?” I ask with a wave.

EpicDave was the first to reply, Dave was a big man, 6’ 6’’ with short brown hair and eyes and a square jaw. The guy was built like a bear and looked to be about 20. Of course, with character customization apparent age means nothing. “Nice ta meet ya. Name’s Dave, EpicDave! This game’s amazing, it really seems real. I love it!”

WokWay was shorter at about 5’ 10’’ with a slim build and red hair. The man has one of those ageless looks, could have been in his 20s or 40s. “It’s impressive I’ll give you that. I’ll wait till I get a class before making up my mind, but I am optimistic. My name is WokWay as I am sure you can see.”

The last guy WonderJim was sort of halfway between the other two men, with a medium build, blond hair, and brown eyes. He seemed to be around 40. “Names WonderJim, game’s pretty good so far. Lookin forward to actually getting to use this thing though.” He said gesturing to the starter sword on his belt.

At that point, we all turned to LadyOfTheLake, a petite blond young woman with bright blue eyes. “Hi guys, I’m LadyOfTheLake, just call me Lady, and the game seems cool so far.”

Any further conversation was interrupted by a large man coming up to us and barking orders, “Hey you lot follow me to the Initiate Armory; I won’t wait for ya.” With that, he turned around and walked out.

Following the man brought us to one outbuilding near the edge of the arena. As he ushered us inside, he said to us. “My name is Instructor Warren, get in there and pick out a training weapon then come back out. Don’t be telling me you already have a weapon either, that thing hanging on your waists is more of an eyesore than a threat.” Well, he wasn’t wrong. The starter sword sucked so badly I would melt it down rather than sell it and potentially inflict it on someone else.

Inside was an armory, with at least one of practically every common weapon type, all arranged in neat rows. Damn things were trash though. Practice weapons are extremely durable, but in exchange they can’t be sharpened, can’t weigh much, etc. They are useless for fighting anything above level one really, but they can let you get a feel for the balance and forms if you practice with them.

WokWay gravitated towards the medium blades section, WonderJim the polearms, EpicDave went towards the large blades section, and Lady went to browse the longswords. I made my way to the daggers and took a pair with a belt and put them on, then I grabbed a spear and tucked a hand axe in the belt before walking out. Since I knew what I wanted, I was the first of the group done and Instructor Warren gave me a funny look.

“You gonna use all those son? Most folks don’t have a damn clue how ta use a single weapon when they get here and you got half the damn armory, you know we’re fightin boars not an army, right?”

I gave him a smile and a slight nod. “Don’t worry about me sir, I know exactly what I’m doing with these.”

“Well it’s your neck I guess.” He grunted with a shrug.

After waiting a couple more minutes, the rest of the group came out. WokWay wielded a pair of blades shorter than a short sword that were shaped like long, thin cooking cleavers. Not a terrible choice there. WonderJim had a double-headed glaive, ouch that’s a tricky one to learn without stabbing yourself. Lady had the classic bastard sword, a well-rounded weapon. Then there was EpicDave who had a greatshield and a fucking zweihander, I mean the man was big enough but if he kept that setup he would need a massive strength stat to even lift them when not using practice equipment. I shared a look with the instructor at the sheer absurdity of Dave’s choices.

“Right, you lot form up on me and I’ll take you to the boar fields.” With that, he took off towards the part of the arena that met the wall. At the wall, there was a gate into the fields behind the city, the boar field. I always wondered why the back field had so many damn boars, AoA didn’t have the classic, respawn out of nothing mechanic, but it did have rapid growth and reproduction in certain areas. You could clear the fields completely and within a day they would repopulate. Before we got too close to the first boar we could see that didn’t have another group near it the instructor called a halt.

“Okay you lot, the task is to slay 5 boars solo with those training weapons and prove your mettle as a warrior, you’ll go one at a time. Off you go.”

The other 4 looked at each other before Dave said, “Lady’s first” and gestured to the nearby boar. With a groan at the pun, Lady approached the boar slowly with her sword raised in a rudimentary guard. When she was around 10 feet from it the boar charged, surprising her with its speed and she dived out of the way. Lady scrambled to her feet as the boar slowed to turn around and set her feet in a more stable stance. Huh, not bad for a noob. The next pass she stepped to the side and slashed at the boar, scoring a solid hit along its flank. Three repetitions of this and the boar was dead. Lady stood there panting as we gave her a round of applause.

“Well, you don’t suck completely so well done.” Boomed warren with a laugh. “Leave the body for the animals and we’ll do the next one.” He pointed at EpicDave. “Big guy goes next.”

We moved to the next boar and Dave approached it with shield raised. When it charged he planted the shield.

“Ouch, this won’t end well.” Admittedly, if this were proper equipment and he had high stats, Dave wouldn’t be wrong with his tactic. At the moment though he is a noob with 5 in everything. Predictably, he got run over. The boar didn’t even stop and charged the group, just as I was going to interfere instructor Warren threw a rock at it and caved its head in. We all walked over to where Dave was lying on the ground.

“You okay there, Dave?” I asked.

“Ow, did someone get the plate numbers on that boar?” he asked as he got up. Lucky for him the things are level 1 so they do little damage. The shield blocked most of it anyway.

“Okay, you next Mr. Armory, I need to teach this lug not to suck as much. Let’s see you back up your words from earlier.” Warren said to me.

“Gladly.” This should be fun. I walk towards the next boar, heft my spear and then chuck it into the boar’s shoulder right as it charges. It stumbles and I run towards it with daggers drawn and stab its other shoulder and neck as I somersault over it, leaving the blades in the boar. By this point, it was paralyzed and had collapsed, so I took out the axe and split its skull before retrieving my weapons and walking back.

Level 1 Young Plains Boar killed!

+25 EXP

“Okay, I’m impressed.” Admitted the instructor. “You there you’re next.” He said pointing to WokWay.

“Not sure I can really follow that, but I’ll do my best.”

“Just do as Lady did and you’ll be fine.” I told him.

He was too, Wok scored hits with both blades while avoiding the charge, within a minute the boar was dead. Jim used the same strategy and killed his with little trouble. We continued the rotation and Dave killed his boar this time. With everyone able to kill the boars we kept going until each of us had killed 5. To test myself I killed my last boar solely with hand-to-hand combat, kicking its leg in as it went by and kicking it until it died. With everyone done, Warren led us back to the arena and collected the practice weapons.

“Well, you lot weren’t nearly as bad as the last bunch. Take these chits to someone in the hall, and congratulations on not being useless. Get yourselves some proper weapons and you might be worth a damn, eventually. Now get out of here.” With that Instructor Warren shooed us away and we said our farewells to each other. I got in one line and turned in my chit, getting a Common Weapon Voucher in exchange and completing the quest.

Quest – Boar Training Completed!

+200 EXP

Warrior Classes have been unlocked!

Apprentice Warrior Class Unlocked!

Weapon Proficiencies Unlocked!

I opened my Proficiencies tab to see what I had gained.

Weapon Proficiencies

Sword

2

Spear

4

Dagger

4

Axe

4

Hand-to-Hand

6

Well, let’s see what that did for my class selections “New Class Options”

Apprentice Warrior

Versatile Fighter

Mana Warrior

Brawler

Elemental Fighter

Pretty good, Mana Warrior was a low-level Tier 2 that focused on strengthening the body with mana and Versatile Fighter was the path to mastering any weapon you touched. Neither was good for my purposes but not bad classes themselves. Brawler was the start of hand-to-hand fighting paths such as Monks and Pugilists, hell I met a guy once who had taken it on the path of a boxer and got a class called Golden Glove, the man had so many stacking bonuses to his fists it was insane. I think he died in the Battle of Sol-Bakur, if not then I have no clue what happened to him since I never saw him after that.

Ugh, I have got to stop getting lost in memories, stay on mission Jack. Let’s see Elemental Fighter is fairly good.

Elemental Fighter

Blending a warrior’s might with the power of the elements, the Elemental Fighter starts upon the path of a true blend of magic and steel. While not a master of either, what he does know he combines to great effect.

+5 Str, +4 Con, +3 Dex, +4 Int, +2 Wis per Level

Okay, that is a very good tier 2 class, better than I remembered even. Still not good enough. The Int and Wis boosts just won’t cut it for me at this point. Ugh, maybe I need to do the druid training to get a more magic-focused version. I wish I remembered more of the low tier classes; it was so long ago… I remember a lot of them, but finding just the right one is proving to be a pain; I know there was one that was magic heavy and only unlocked with access to the basic elements and proficiencies, but for the life of me I can’t remember the details.

Fuck, I wish I could blitz the druid training quest. It doesn’t make you be in a group like the warrior one, but it can either take forever, or it can take about 10 minutes. First, I should stop by the adventurer’s guild and grab a pack.

To get there I had to make my way almost all the way back to the central plaza of Cloudburn. The adventurer’s guild is the heart of the game for most people, or at least it will be. There is a branch in almost every major city or town. Hell, the true headquarters of it actually is a city in its own right. Bastion is a unique place, you can’t feel comfortable there until you are at least a bit touched in the head. Really, what sane person spends time throwing themselves at monsters as a daily activity? Bastion’s supposed to be the rock on which the waves break. All the evils of the world resisted and pushed back by the adventurers as they safeguard the world. At least that’s how it’s supposed to be. In the end, Bastion proved too large to defend, too exposed. I stayed with the rearguard to buy time for the evacuation, but that was all we could do. I can still taste the ash.

Anyway, the Guild of Cloudburn was a four-story complex with some training yards around it, right off the plaza it was hard to miss. A large structure of wood and the iconic Cloudburn white marble, it had banners and flags in all sorts of colors attached to it. I never confirmed if the Guildmaster was sober when he designed it, but looking at it I seriously doubt it.

The interior was just as warm and inviting as I remembered. Quest boards and tables set up around the room and the receptionist at the counter. I was tempted to take a left into the dining hall and order a pint. Sadly, I was on mission and broke to boot.

“New adventurer?” The young woman asked as I approached the counter.

“Something like that.” I replied.

“Well, just put your hand on this and I’ll get you registered.” She pointed to a red-tinted crystal ball with an ornate base on the counter. A standard tool used to attach mana signatures to objects you can find one in every branch or the Guild.

I did as requested, and a mote of light condensed in the ball. It then sank to the bottom and a slot in the base spat out a badge shaped like a shield. Engraved on the shield was my name, Lazarus, in shining copper and a square indent for a rank token. The moment I touched it, I felt a spark signifying that it was now bound to me. This thing was enchanted to hell and back. You can’t lose it, it’s nearly impossible to destroy, and if you die it respawns with you. Well, it will until the game changes, that is. Can’t respawn with you if you stay dead after all.

While I was looking over the badge, the receptionist had already gone and grabbed a pack for me. “Here is your complimentary pack, travel clothes, and three days rations.” She said, handing it over.

I shrugged it on and felt a bit better, hadn’t realized I was so unsettled by not having a decent inventory. Inventory space is funny in AoA, they based it on the size of the bag or bags you carry. You can store things in it without using the bag, and it does not limit the actual size of the items to the size of the pack. I can store 25 things now with my pack and belt pouch and I can stick a greatsword or a halberd in my inventory if I want to. The bags are just access devices to the space where you keep your stuff. There are of course a couple tricks you can use if you know what you’re doing. It may seem obvious but you can also use the pack as a pack and the things you store in it will not appear in your inventory.

“There is a changing area right through that door.” She said pointing to one of the several doors along the back wall.

“Thanks.”

I made my way over and changed into the basic travel clothes, dark brown pants, and a blue tunic with a green cloak. Shoving the starting rags in my bag for future firestarter, I went back to the front desk.

“Now you look like a proper adventurer. If you need any class training, there are various guilds around the city. You might have to do a small errand to prove yourself to them before they will train you though.”

“Thanks miss, guess I’ll be off then. See you around.”

I gave her a wave as I exited the building. Right, now to see the druids. I make my way west towards the large tree at the heart of the Flower District. The area is home to alchemists and herbalists, along with a variety of other nature-themed people like butchers and bakers. This is the district for those that appreciate the bounty of nature or want to buy some flowers. At its heart is a huge hollow tree that serves as the Druid headquarters in Cloudburn, and below that is the Preserve.

Walking in the front archway, I can feel the odd hum of nature magic running through the wooden floor. There is an old man at the counter dozing with a crow on his shoulder. A box of amulets sits on the counter in front of him.

Wow, didn’t expect the archdruid himself to be manning the desk. Caelus Lormane was one of the biggest badasses I have seen, still is, I guess. He was the only reason any of us made it out of Cloudburn alive. The tough old shit single-handedly beat back an army that had encircled the city, must have been half a million strong, all the while dueling 2 of the 4 Pillars of Akathor. This gave the rest of us time to flee. Caelus then won his fight with the Pillars, giving us the first real bit of hope against the Ruin. That spark of hope led to my victory over the third pillar and Kerbos slaying the fourth. Elaine went back to see the aftermath of that battle, whatever she saw she never told a soul, but it spurred her to march on the Corruptor herself without a word to anyone. When we found her broken body above the Corruptor’s corpse, all she said was “For Caelus” as she passed away. I was never brave enough to revisit the vale and find out what she saw.

I shook myself out of the memories again. Things would be different this time. I’d make sure of it.