It was finally time for Archie to show up in Tyrith city and join me in the game. Granted, it would only be for a short time in the city itself. I had a force of Fae to return to their own plane with a force of disgruntled players dreaming of glory looking to wreck my plans. The poor bastards better bring their own army and not just a small pack of idiots, or it wouldn’t even be worth the time it took to end them. On the plus side, free loot from whatever they drop! I could never say no to goodies.

Aly was excited to meet Archie and his Fairy as well. She had pretty much been relegated to only dealing with me and I knew that my conversational skills weren’t exactly top notch. It would be good for her to meet Fallon and have another Unique Fairy to talk to. The tiny woman was flitting about in crazy patterns through the air as we made our way down the main road of the city towards the gates. Checking the time on my UI, I noticed that the caravan was due to arrive a few minutes ago and I was late… I hated being late, but Aly had convinced me to stop by the tavern for one final drink before we left the city. Call me a sucker, but it is hard to deny the cute Fairy a single drink even if it was enabling her bad habit.

Due to the layout of the city, the train of carts and wagons had all set up just outside of the main gates with a make-shift market being thrown together right outside of the walls. Goods of all different varieties were set up on tables with a selection from weapons and armor right down to potions and raw materials of all kinds. Some of the armor caught my eye, but the rarity of the pieces weren’t quite up to par when compared to my current leather set I had equipped just like the items available in the city. I wanted to upgrade, but not at the cost of losing so many of my stat bonuses from my gear for a meager few more points of armor.

As I was browsing the items available for purchase, I felt a hand clap down on my right shoulder which caused Aly to squeak in surprise and shoot up into the air from my left side. “Calamity is it? Why does that not surprise me in the slightest? Your originality has always astounded me.” The voice from behind me brought a grin to my face as I turned around.

Knocking the arm from my shoulder, I punched Archie in the shoulder then saw his name plate. “Zexceed… And you have the balls to bitch about my name?” We both laughed and moved away from the stand while Aly dropped back down to my shoulder again. Glancing over at her, I motioned towards Archie. “Aly, this is Zexceed. Zex, this is Alysandaria.”

Aly waved at Archie and beamed a smile at him from her spot. “Nice to meet you Mr. Zexceed. Please just call me Aly.” Her shocking blue eyes looked all about in search of something, and I noticed Archie’s Fairy wasn’t anywhere in sight. “Calamity said you had your own Fairy Contract? I was looking forward to meeting them too.”

I watched as Archie waved back behind him towards someone in full plate armor with two Fairies floating about them talking animatedly. “Fallon and Celeste are both back there with Serena.” He motioned me to follow him and started making his way back to the group. “Oh, by the way. Here, accept these and Serena will probably send you a friend request as well.”

Two messages popped up before me, one a friend request with the other being a party invite. I accepted both quickly and raised a brow at Zexceed. “So, she decided to come along then? Glad to hear it. I hope neither of you were looking for a grand tour of the city though. I have a big quest that I need your help with right away.” I opened up my map and set the waypoint marker on the Fae expedition camp. I switched over to the party chat option so nobody else around would be able to hear me even if they saw my lips moving. “I marked the location on the map, so you should be able to see it yourself. Let’s head out and I will explain on the trip.”

Zex seemed more than happy with the circumstances and had an excited grin on his face as he caught up to Serena and the Fairies. “See, I knew he would have something big planned already. The bastard never could just fly under the radar.” I saw one Fairy break away and float at his side, silvery eyes looking back at myself and Aly during our approach to join them. “This is Fallon, Serena is the plate wearing barbarian, and Celeste is the other Fairy here. Everyone, this is Calamity and Aly. Play nice kids.”

All three of the little beings flew up into the air an extra couple feet and started floating about as they exchanged greetings, just as us Humans did below. It was good to see my friends in a game once more, and the prospects of our future adventures began to look up. Staying in the party chat, I gave them both a quick rundown on what was going on.

“Right, thanks for coming guys. No time for sightseeing though. So, you know how there are supposed to be more races in the game than what we have seen?” At the nods from the others I went on. “Well I may have run into one of them and gotten a quest to escort their group back to a gate so they can go home…”

“Of course you did.” Archie broke in with a huff and shake of his head. “Let me guess, you killed all of their best fighters in a misunderstanding, then swept up their damsel in distress to get into their good graces?” Kayla laughed at that but didn’t say anything, instead waiting for me to confirm or deny his accusations.

“Yeah, not quite. I actually helped them fight off an army of goblins and returned to them a magical key that will let them get home. Princess actually hates my guts, so no chance of sweeping any feet there.” I paused and rubbed a hand over my face, thinking back to my meeting with Caius. “On top of that, I may have received the blessing of the gods in a vow to kill the bitch if she attacked me another time.”

Both of them joined me in a good laugh, and it was Kayla who decided to comment on my endeavors with the Fae. “Wait, are you saying you did the exact opposite of cliché? Hah! Go figure. This Princess must be a real piece of work for you to turn around and give her a death threat like you did.” She grinned at me, her helmet tucked away in her inventory while we walked to keep her face open to the sun filtering down through the tree canopy.

“Heh, yeah I am still a violent asshole in games. Not going to deny that one ever.” Returning her smile, I was feeling good at the moment. My friends were with me, we had a good quest to fulfill, and we were each playing to our old school main strengths. “I have to warn you though… We will probably have company along the way. I can’t pin down any exact details, but trouble is brewing and this escort quest will turn into a defend and slaughter the attackers one at some point. PvP combat with maybe fifteen players of various levels, most casual account type from what I can figure. Zex, I will be relying on you to break it down when it comes then I will lay down our strat.”

Archie held up a hand curled up for a fist bump which I gladly gave him. “You got it. Just like old times. Remember that raid back in Trinity Online? I have a feeling it will be going along those lines with the way we are building.” He paused and tilted his head, then looked me up and down. “Actually, forward me your stats and gear specs and I will do my magic and see what needs fixing. Going for a two handed berserker build?”

I opened up my menus and selected the option to allow party members to view all of my stats and gear while Kayla scoffed beside me. “Psh… Please. Idiot here is always a berserker.” Her bright smile took any sting out of the words, even if they were quite accurate. “The only time he has played anything else was when we either bribed or tricked him into it! Hell, even in TriOn we had to have Alex come in as a healer in order to do anything properly with this guy floor tanking all the time.”

“Hey! The ground and I just had a mutual understanding and respect! Don’t be jealous that even when I died halfway through a fight I still did the most damage out of everyone in a raid.” I smirked at her with a chuckle. “Maybe it was the tank who couldn’t hold aggro, eh?”

“Oh no!” Archie cut us off before the old banter could shade to topics we all argued over for hours on end back in college. “No debates on blame placement. I swear to God if you two start that up again I am muting the both of you and will laugh at your deaths which I will arrange as swiftly as possible.”

Kayla and I both got a good laugh at his expense on that one, with even our Fairies giggling at the byplay between the group. Aly had once more settled on my shoulder after spending the first half hour of travel conversing with her peers and spoke up. “You know, it is good to see Calamity here in such a good mood. He has mentioned the both of you to me before, and I have to agree that you and your partners are quite fun to be around.”

I snorted at the tiny Fairy and shook my head at her. “You are just happy that I have others to poke fun at and not just you anymore. No need to hide it, I am aware of my faults for the most part.” Aly merely giggled with a smirk and shrug, not refuting my words which made the rest of us laugh as well. “Anyway, back on track here. Zex, I am building a bit differently in here thanks to Aly. I need more mana than a typical berserker build and my strength is coming from titles and items so far. My original plan was to build more like an Amazonian line. High speed and durability to make up for a lower strength score. With my scythe here I can get in about two attacks every three seconds, and about one per second when activating True Haste. Granted, that is when going all out with no blocks or parries, but I have been able to make do with swift counters in those situations.”

Archie nodded his head as he perused my numbers and listened. After a few moments, he began using his fingers to push at things in the air I couldn’t see. I was about to ask what he was doing when he caught my look and laughed. “I figured out how to use an in game calculator from the ready room and it works like an AR screen only I can see. Give me a few here and I will have some thoughts for you.” He trailed behind Kayla and I while he worked, following us with his peripheral vision as he concentrated on his work.

“You know, he really has missed gaming with you. We both have.” The soft words came from Kayla, her eyes flicking back to Archie before scanning our surroundings once more. She carried her shield on her right arm, the sword belted to her right hip for a cross body draw with her left hand. She was a lefty in real life, and the game must have taken that into consideration for the realistic levels of combat. “The last few years have been rather boring, to be honest. There are a lot of good gamers out there, but they all take it way too seriously. The world of pro gaming has turned into a job to them, unlike the fun we used to have of it back in college. Even with everyone at DT, we are the only ones who look at this like a game, and not a work project that needs to be perfected, packaged and shipped off just to meet the next deadline.” She shrugged, seeming a bit apprehensive about something.

I had noticed it from her since joining up back in Tyrith city. She had this, aloofness to her that was very unlike the Kayla I had known in the past. It was rather bothering to me actually, as it made me feel like I had missed out on too much with my friends whom I had all but lost contact with in recent years. “Yeah, well to be fair… We never really were looking to make a living of this back in school. It was entertainment to us that also supplied a few nice paychecks at the same time. From all I have seen, the newer pros all have to work incredibly hard to keep up with the curve, the way games are going.” I offered her a shrug and went on, “We were just the talented and lucky ones, I think. We met up at just the right time and each of us had the right skills needed to rise above the rest in the grand scheme of things. I am not saying I can beat any gamer out there, but I am damn sure I can beat the bulk of them still. We all worked hard to understand games back then, even if it didn’t look like it, and our group synergy was always above and beyond that of anyone else.”

She thought about that for a moment, then nodded with a small smile of acceptance. “You are right. We were the ones who just happened to be good at games when the whole rise to popularity began. Then by default we were vaulted to the top of the lists with our group being as good as it was.” Her words stopped as she turned to eye me critically. “As for you beating most of the rest of pro gamers out there still… Well I will be the judge of that after we deal with a few real obstacles. Don’t forget that while your ass has been lazing about with a nine to five job, the rest of us have been working our butts off to stay on top.”

Her words brought another chuckle from me as I had to concede that point to her. “Fair enough. I suppose I have been out of the loop for a while. But it is like riding a bike to me… I learned a lot of good things back when I was pro, and I still remember them all, I think. Should be enough to keep me afloat here in RoI with the competition I have. Especially now that the team is back together!”

Archie walked up between us then, forcing us to step aside so he could take the middle position of the group. “Okay, enough idle chit-chat. Your build is looking to be viable here, so I would say to keep up with it. Although I would suggest you add more into agility to really boost that one up higher. If you are going to rely on speed with a two handed weapon, agility should be head and shoulders above the rest of your stats. We have a tank here with the proper skills to hold aggro, so I want to see you getting in five attacks in three seconds soon, with your top end going well beyond that. Keep building agility-centric and you should feasibly hit that mark by level fifteen.” He paused, his fingers pushing at the bridge of his nose like he was adjusting his glasses in real life. “In that time, only bring up Fort another eight points, then dump the rest into agility. Both Serena and I have gone over our own stats, so you are the only one out of whack at the moment, although it isn’t by much.”

I shook my head at his projections. Only in a game could I ever hope to move fast enough to swing a polearm fast enough to get five strike in three seconds, but that was the glorious joy of my current situation! “Damn, that sounds like it will be devastating. Is that with or without True Haste?”

“Without. While using it, you will be able to get much more done in less amount of standard time. I read over Aly’s skills, and I swear, she is the perfect match for your play style. You got damn lucky when you found her. Fallon here was what directed my build path, not the other way around like you. Lucky bastard…” He grumbled the last bit, but it sounded good natured and a small smile curled the corners of his lips to reinforce that opinion.

“He does have a point, you know. Hell, the both of you are lucky bastards!” Kayla spared a glare for each of us before turning back to our path. “Only one of us here doesn’t have a Unique Fairy after all. Keep bragging about it and I might have to bash your knees out and leave you behind.” She tilted her head slightly then shrugged. “Actually, no. I am fine with only having a rare class Fairy considering what Celeste can do for me.”

Archie was about to reply to her, but I put a hand on his shoulder as we were about to come upon the Fae camp after circling around the edge of the goblin ruins. “Shelve it folks. Time to get this show on the road. I will bring us into the camp and head over to the Commander to introduce you, then we will do what we can to help them get their shit together to get on the road. Serena, helmet on. From this point forward I want everyone ready for a fight. Shit can go sideways in an instant, and it is on us to ride herd on anything that threatens these people. Quest has a bonus for not losing any more soldiers, so do what you can.” I grinned at the two of them and stepped to the front of our group. “Do good, and drinks will be on me when we get back to Tyrith.”

The meeting with Caius went smoothly, his psycho daughter nowhere in sight thankfully. My friends each received a quest to help escort the Fae back to the Realm Gate, although their rewards weren’t nearly as good as my own according to Caius. That was fine by them, as they really just wanted a chance to see something new in the game that was quite interesting. I mean, who wouldn’t want to be part of the first player contact with a different race? This quest alone would probably boost their stream views by a good margin, which in turn may very well add a decent bonus from Dumadine Technology.

Caius had been ready for us when we arrived, and it only took another hour to finish breaking down the remaining tents and get the soldiers into marching formation. Princess made a short appearance during that time, but as soon as she saw me and my friends the walking attitude turned around and scurried off. Probably under orders to stay far away from me lest I felt the need to fulfill my vow to kill her. In other circumstances it would have been a smart move, but with Kayla and Archie here I had more entertaining things to do than tormenting an NPC.

Once the remaining army got moving, I split our group up to best facilitate our chances of preventing casualties. I took the lead position ahead of the army, Kayla and Archie each taking one of the flanks to be ready for ambushes I didn’t spot from the head of the group. This was all my plan, but neither of my party members argued with the suggestion and went along with my idea. Some may have argued against splitting our group up, but we couldn’t be everywhere at once as it was, and this was the best solution to the problem in general.

According to Caius, it would take three hours to make it back to the Realm Gate, which would be pushing us past the five hour marker by a small bit. Good thing the game didn’t force us to log out as soon as we got to that point, or this would be a much harder endeavor. The commander himself walked up front with me, and it was finally time to pick his brain over the topics I was curious about. I couple quick setting changes allowed my party to hear everything I did, which would save me from having to explain anything more to the others as well as giving them something to think on while we marched.

“Okay, time for some answers. You promised me an explanation about what you know of Aly and even Fallon.” I kept my eyes scanning the trail and woods ahead of us, looking for any discrepancies or other things that seemed out of place. “You called Fallon ‘Lord’ just as you call Aly ‘Lady’. Let’s start there if you would, please.”

“Yes, I did promise you some answers. Although to give you them, I must go into some more of the history of the Fairy race in general.” The golden armored commander paused, collecting his thoughts before starting his story. “To begin with, you saw how Fairies are born. They don’t give birth like normal people of the various races, and are instead… Created. Going back to the beginning of our knowledge of Fairies, we know that the race originally descended from the gods themselves. There were only twelve original Fairies, one of each of the main elements with a couple extras, and they served as the direct assistants to the gods who rule over this world and many of the others that we know of. Some people believe that each plane has its own set of gods, but the truth is that there is only one pantheon who watch over every realm we have discovered.

“In the beginning of the race, the gods took a piece of themselves and gave it life to start the species. It is why they are among the few beings capable of directing and manipulating raw mana into useful spells and abilities. Just about every species has access to the raw aspect of mana, but only those directly related to the gods can do anything serious with the power. Continuing along those lines, we get to how Fairies are created. Due to the nature of their first creation, Fairies do not possess any of the typical reproduction systems commonly found among sentient races, and must reproduce in the same way as they were first made.

“Only the most powerful of the Fairy race can become a Matriarch or Patriarch, the sheer amount of mana needed in order to create another of their kind being quite vast and beyond the abilities of the more common rank and file. When one of these powerful Fairies become old enough, they will begin to gather mana and hoarding it away within themselves until such a time as they can manipulate it into a new life.”

After the Fae explained it, I was able to understand more about the Fairies in general. Thinking back to how I had met those in the Grotto, I could see that it was indeed a nest area for the older Fairy who seemed like such a kind and friendly being. Actually, being a Matriarch herself, Sarah was probably a Divine or Unique ranked Fairy. Once more, the game amazed me at the level of detail that had been put into the story and history behind everything I was seeing. Most of the time, one had to dig deep to find out the lore of a world, but here I was getting a mostly full story from a race that wasn’t going to be playable for a long time to come. Not even mentioning that Caius had already informed me about a lot of other neat background before as well.

I took a glance up to Aly as she flew around above me, working in an overwatch capacity to try and spot any problems from on high that I couldn’t see from the ground. She never really went far from me, always within easy speaking distance, but the idea that she would someday have the task of creating more of her kind gave me a new respect and appreciation for the fact that I got a Contract with her.

“So, there is going to come a day where I will need to release Aly from her Contract with me in order to fulfill her role of furthering her species then?” That thought had me worried. What if she decided that the time to do so came sooner rather than later? So far in the game, I had been relying quite heavily on her abilities and had plans to make full use of her for a long time to come. She was one of those things in a game one just didn’t part ways with.

Caius followed my gaze and smiled at the sight of Aly performing her duties with all seriousness and shrugged his shoulders. “In time, yes. She is quite young, and has a lot of growing to do before that time comes though. Perhaps in a hundred years or so Lady Alysandaria will be powerful enough to create a new Fairy.” He looked back to me and patted my shoulder. “Fear not, Calamity. She will be with you for many years yet so long as you hold faith to the Contract you formed with her.”

The Fae Commander misunderstood the reasoning behind my worries, taking it for sentimental attachment rather than the possible loss of a valuable tool. Perhaps he was right though… Despite this being just a game, I was rather fond of Aly’s personality and considered her to be a friend to an extent. Maybe it was a bit crazy, but the realism here was just too high to do anything but that after spending so much time with her. AI or not, she had her own characteristics that made her unique that had nothing to do with her rarity levels, and seemed to be working wonders on drawing me away from my internal brooding over the current state of my life. Call it what you will, she was still cheaper than a therapist.

“Thank you for the information Caius. It will be of great help to me in the future, and explains a good deal on how and why the Fairies are treated as they are.” I wasn’t joking about that either. The NPCs of this world all treated Fairies with a deference and respect that now made sense knowing they were descended from the gods. “Actually, my thoughts have brought up another question if you don’t mind me asking?”

“Not at all. Ask away and I will answer what I can.” He smiled at me quickly, then looked back to the front. “The conversation is helping to pass the time nicely, and spreading knowledge has always been one of the Fae’s greatest pleasures. Despite what you have seen with this group of my people, we rather tend to be scholars and teachers, avoiding the prospects of war and fighting as much as possible. Obviously we keep ourselves up to the task of combat should the need arise, but a great many of my kind refuse to deal with anything to do with violence.”

I nodded at him and gathered my own thoughts for a moment. The question I had could be taken with offense, and I didn’t want to alienate this group against me by being inconsiderate. “Well, forgive me if this comes out as too blunt… But why do I not see any temples or churches in Tyrith city, nor have I seen any religious symbols or even people praying? With all of this vast knowledge and assurances of the gods, why isn’t there much more worship of them going on?”

The older Fae chuckled at me and waved his hand towards the forest surrounding the wide path we traveled on. “I am going to answer your question with one of my own, for perspective. To all of the animals and insects around us, those which we kill on a regular basis for sustenance and the use of their skins, would we not seem as gods to them? We can kill them easily, and do so rather often, and must seem as all powerful beings in their eyes. Yet they do not worship us. In turn, why would we worship any beings more powerful than us?” He shrugged his shoulders at me, adding in some more since he must have felt his point wasn’t quite made yet. “The gods are simply above us in the grand scale of the universe, but they do nothing overly great to aid the mortal races in their lives. That is why there is no devotion to the higher beings.”

Yet again, the Fae made perfect sense to me and made me ponder aspects of religion in general within the real world as well. He made some quite valid points, but at the same time the lore of the gods here was quite different than the religions outside of the game. Ugh… These musings were making my head hurt. Yeah, time for a topic change.

I was just about to say something to direct the conversation away from such things when Aly flew down quickly with a look of worry on her features. “Calamity, we have a problem. Roughly three hundred paces ahead there is a group of warriors hiding along the side of the path. They are using the brush to hide themselves from sight from the group but are easily seen from above.”

A smile curved my lips at the prospect of impending battle. “Thanks Aly.” I stopped walking and raised a hand, turning behind me and calling out loudly, “Right, time for a quick break. Grab some water and rations and rest up. Perimeter guards set up and keep your eyes peeled for ten minutes, then rotate out with the second group to continue on our way.” I spoke in a clear tone that would easily carry ahead as well as behind, and Aly was tiny enough that she would hopefully have been missed by anyone in the ambush party ahead of us. For all intents and purposes, this would look like any old stop for a break while on a long march. Switching over to party chat, I spoke while facing away from our foes ahead. “Serena, Zex, come on up here. Quietly inform the second guard group to join the active roster and get ready. We have a welcome party ahead asking for our attention and I want the Fae to be ready in case there are more.”

I got a confirmation from both of them, then I followed my own advice and brought out a skin of water from my inventory to share with Caius. He raised a brow at me, curious as to why I was stopping the main force, so I decided to explain my plan to him. “These are Outlanders like me. By stopping the Fae soldiers this far back I have a chance of taking my group ahead and dealing with the problem before any of your people even become at risk.” I smirked at him, perhaps a bit of my eagerness reflecting in my expression. “Don’t worry, my friends and I have done this many times before. Give me a few minutes and we will be able to carry on to the Realm Gate without a problem hopefully. Stay on guard though. As I said, there may be more about.”

“As you say Calamity. We will leave these trouble makers to you and yours while we hunker down and defend our position. I overheard some of the plans you were making with your group and have to agree that you have an idea of what you are about. Good luck.” With that, Caius turned and melted into the mass of Fae milling about the road while they rested some from the journey.

Kayla and Archie joined me at the head of the column, both looking ready for combat as Archie clapped me on the shoulder. “Old times and good company. Let the fun begin! Fallon, buff our friends here with some extra armor, then we can get the party started.”

You have received a buff!

Lesser Celestial Armor

For 1 hour, you have been clad in ethereal armor spun directly from pure moonlight by the Fairy Fallon of the Six Moons.

Effect: +20 armor

Remaining duration: 59:46