“Darith… I’m happy you’re back and all…” His mom calmly spoke while the two remained in each others arms in the living room for an awkward few moments. “But if you want me to make you something to eat, you’re going to have to let me go.”

“Oh, sorry.” Darith released his tiny Nemothyne arms from around her. “I’m just glad you’re safe.” He brushed off some of the cave dust still on his robes.

“I’m safe? I should be saying that to you, Liana tells me you disappeared into a secret place with giant centipedes, now you tell me you’ve been eating them? You alright up there?” Kristen gently knocked him on the head.

“Y-yeah. I’m fine, I just did a quest…” He pondered on Nara and her mother and their struggle to together. “Being a Mom is hard, huh?” Darith spoke as Kristen turned towards the kitchen.

“You’re just now realizing that?” She shook her head.

“Don’t worry though, I’ll protect you!” He called out after her.

“Right.” The sounds of cupboards opening drowned out her voice slightly.

“And we found a way to invite you into the game! It’ll take some work but I think we can manage it.” Darith followed into the kitchen, grabbing a glass and filling it with water from the tap.

“Good. Because I gave it some thought. If you’re going to be disappearing into that fantasy place like that, I want to be able to at least talk to you. I won’t promise anything like moving or quitting my job or something crazy though.” She replied.

“Okay.” Darith nodded before throwing the water into the back of his throat.

“Now do that weird telephone thing to your friends and let’s all eat lunch together.” Kristen awkwardly mimicked the hand motions that they had been doing to use their interface. Darith complied, and one by one the party members began to arrive.

Liana and Gabriel both appeared first in the living room, Gabriel covered in sweat and Liana’s eyes sunken in from exhaustion. Around the time that the food was ready, Elise arrived in Jaese’s car and the two entered together.

“Hey, it's the bug eater!” Elise smiled at Darith as she walked in. Both of them looked worn out as they pulled up chairs at the table while Liana helped Kristen serve the rice and curry she’d made.

“Finally we get to eat something that isn’t Jaese’s sandwiches.” Gabriel commented as the plate was placed before him. “Thank you for the meal, ma’am.” He politely bowed his head to Kristen.

“You’re welcome.”

“Any news on Tai?” Darith asked as all eyes went to Jaese.

“Nothing yet, detective unit is still watching his house and shop, he’s not showing. I’m gonna guess he’s still in the game world.”

“That’s good… it gives us more time. How is everyone doing with the training?” He turned to the others.

“Look! Mana shield!” Liana held out her hands excitedly as a blue wave of energy surrounded her body.

“Awesome!” Darith cheered.

“No spells in the kitchen.” Kristen responded sternly.

“S-sorry.” Liana cancelled the shield.

“I can throw kunai pretty good. I’m not… going to demonstrate though…” Elise looked to Kristen as she said this, and got an approving nod from her.

“I’m feeling about ready to use a bow and crossbow on some monsters.” Jaese added.

“I can use almost everything the games got to offer. Takin’ advantage of all them free trainin’ lessons.” Gabriel replied.

“Good… I managed to get a class that suits me, that’s going to help us all in the long run. Liana decided on what class she’ll play too. I’d like you guys to try and find a class that suits each of you as well, find out the requirements, and then we can work towards them together.”

“How are we supposed to do that?” Elise asked as she took a spoonful of rice into her mouth.

“The classes are like hidden quests, I think. Some are obvious and easy, but there’s a lot that are hidden. If you pursue what you are good at or like doing, one should pop up. And if you have trouble, just ask me and I’ll tell you about all the classes I found in the library.” Darith replied.

“Okay.” Jaese replied while Gabriel nodded.

“Keep training your skills and basic stats too like I told you, the NPCs will only full restore you up to the end of the week. I know it’s not exactly exciting but you’ll regret not doing it later.”

“Nah I don’t mind it. Helps take my mind off things.” Gabriel replied. “What are you gonna be doing?”

“I… might have found a way to get us all much stronger equipment, and make enough money to start our own guild. I can’t work iron yet so I’ll have to level up on the low level stuff first. Also, my class gets stronger the more bosses I defeat, so I’ll try to find where some are. Once the week is over, we’ll start leveling up and hunting bosses, that should make us strong enough to take out Tai and start formulating a plan to deal with those New World Order guys.”

“What exactly is your class?” Liana asked curiously.

“It’s… kind of a secret. People knowing my class would be bad so try not to mention it to anyone.” Darith replied hesitantly.

“Okaaaay.” Liana grumpily replied. The 6 of them continued small talk about what they’d experienced so far and what centipedes tasted like until they’d all finished their meals, then opened the gate back into the city of Avistion, leaving Kristen to watch more movies in the living room.

Darith and Liana waved off Jaese, Gabriel and Elise as they headed back to the training hall, then Liana leaned in to Darith excitedly.

“Okay, now you can tell me, right?” She asked with a sparkle in her eyes. The two were standing in the middle of the busy Griffin Square with crowds of people walking around.

“Not now.” Darith cautiously looked around. “How close are you done with your mastery learning?”

“I’m not telling, that is also a secret.” Liana pouted as she began strutting away in the direction of the magic Academy.. Darith just sighed to himself as she vanished into the crowds. He found himself alone in the busy square, the loud shouting of merchants trying to sell their wares filling his ear. He stretched his arms and neck and faced Tao’s shop.

“Step one.” He whispered to himself, walking forward to the front door of the shop. The bell jingled as he walked inside to see the familiar interior, a few other patrons browsing his wares.

“Welcome back Darith, let me know if I can help you with anything specific.” Tao called out to Darith gleefully from behind his desk. Darith headed straight to the desk and leaned in towards Tao.

“I wanted to ask you a few questions…” Darith whispered.

“Okay…” Tao whispered back apprehensively.

“What are the prices of ore like, you know. Copper and Iron?” Darith whispered.

“Copper goes for 1 gold per 10. Iron goes for 20 gold per 1. If you try and buy it from The New World, they’ll try to sell you 1 Iron ore for 100 gold.” Tao sucked his teeth.

“What about weapons, like a copper short sword compared to an iron one?” Darith asked.

“Copper will cost 1 gold to 10, depending on the quality. An Iron short sword would go for about 100 to 200 gold, depending on quality. The best ones go for 500. If you try and buy that from the new world though… yeah, you’re looking at spending 2000 gold. Not worth it.” Tao replied in a whisper. “This isn’t exactly top secret information, why do we need to whisper?” He asked, to which Darith straightened his back awkwardly.

“N-no reason.”

“If you’re wondering what’s more valuable, I’d say the weapons. None of the blacksmiths outside New World Order get much opportunity to work iron, so the stuff they make is always low quality. If someone was able to make some decent Iron weapons and sell them at a reasonable price, they’d make a killing.” Tao shrugged. Following those words he leaned in awkwardly to Darith. “You wouldn’t happen to have found a source of Iron, would you?” Tao whispered.

“Nope.” Darith broke eye contact. “Where would one go to mine copper?” He tried to change the subject.

“Here.” Tao pulled out a scroll casing from a barrel behind his desk. “This is the mapped area of the Avistion outskirts. It’s player made so its not perfect, but it should update any Cartography skill you have with its information. It’ll tell you where everything in the outskirts is that most people know about. 5 gold pieces.” Tao held out a hand expectantly, while waving the scroll around in his other hand.

Darith reluctantly pulled out 5 gold from his inventory, his funds now getting dangerously low, and handed it over. Tao happily took the coins and passed the scroll casing to Darith who quickly opened it and unravelled the map to see the Broken Realm in all its glory.

Info: Cartography map updated!

Darith looked from the scroll to his map in his interface and expanded it to see that it had updated not only with the information on the map, but it also marked out the locations that Darith had explored around the world using the gates thus far.

“Just be careful, if you cross the river in the south, or pass over the eastern mountains, you’ll leave the Avistion outskirts and therefore be vulnerable to PvP. New World Guys have high level players watching the borders, it’s a real pain.” Tao commented as he watched Darith ogle the map.

“Aweseome… thanks for the information. Do you have any gathering tools I should grab before heading out?” Darith asked as he rolled the scroll back up and put it in his inventory.

“What sort of gathering?”

“Well…” Darith briefly scrolled through his gathering skills. “Pretty much all of them I guess.” Tao just let out a long sigh as he got out from behind the desk and wandered around his shop a few seconds, gathering different tools. He then plopped them all down on the counter. A copper pickaxe, a woodcutting axe, a sickle, a skinning knife, and a fishing rod.

“Which one?” Tao asked.

“All of them.” Darith smiled.

“5 gold.” Tao held out his hand. Darith regretfully pulled out 5 gold and handed it to him, and the item ownership of the tools were transferred to him.

“One last question…” Darith began putting each tool in his inventory. “Where would I go to smelt and things like that?”

“There’s the public Craftsman Guildhall in Avistion, it’s free to use but crowded and their stuff is not that great. Our Friendly Fox Guildhall has the high end workstations for different crafters. I could probably ask the guild officers to let you use it…” Tao leaned in again to Darith. “On the condition that if you do, ‘accidentally’ find Iron…” He whispered while looking to make sure no one was listening. “You sell it to me.” Tao grinned. Darith hesitated for a second as he thought about the deal. Having someone else handle the selling side of his plan would help him a lot, as long as it was kept quiet.

“If I somehow… you know… find iron, by accident. And I sell it to you… you wouldn’t tell anyone who you got it from, right?” Darith whispered back awkwardly. He clearly wasn’t good at this sort of thing.

“Of course not, what kind of fool would share that information with others.” Tao grinned back, holding his hand out to shake on it.

“Okay… deal.” Darith whispered, casually shaking his hand.

“Wonderful.” Tao smiled as he pulled away again. “In that case, have this on the house.” He grabbed a high quality copper pickaxe and transferred ownership to Darith. “When you’re ready to start crafting, drop in and I’ll get someone to escort you to the guild hall.”

“Okay great. See you around.” Darith smiled as he turned and headed out of the shop. Once out back into the square, he fidgeted around with his cartography map to get a good idea of where he wanted to go first.

He closed the map and looked around at his surroundings, staring down the various city streets until he spotted the large city gates leading south out of the city, and with a skip in his step he began his journey into the Avistion Outskirts.

“Step two.”