Kyle chuckled “Encore!” he shouted gleefully as he tried to rise onto his knees, the bandits around him fidgeted with their weapons while deciding on whether to fight or run.

One of the bandits suddenly spoke up “What ye all standing around for!? We either leaving here with their beaten bodies or we ain’t leaving at all! Boss won’t be letting us live if we come back empty!” he glared Sly down ,“He cut three of us down and beat our captain, we gotta repay him for hurting our pride!” he shouted and all the bandits responded “Aye!!” he grimaced “Then kill h-”.

“Excuse me for cutting your little speech short but…Pride? Seriously? You’re bandits for fucks sake!“ Sly stepped forward while dragging his pole-blade in the snow behind him “You lost your pride the second you thought of robbing someone, you’re the lowest of the low, the trash in our alleyways, the forgotten shit the stray dog once took” he joked with a condescending smile, the bandits rushed forth in pairs.

Suddenly Sly’s blade gained a purple glow that left behind an after image similar to Shirley’s daggers, he side-stepped, parried and reflected every lunge, stab, slash and hack they sent his way. Kyle stared in amazement as his pole-arm flashed in a whirlwind of wood and metal clashing with multiple weapons at once, the bandits sweat profusely as they exerted themselves to land hits but none landed at all.

One by one the bandits backed away while still surrounding Sly, said person was currently unaffected, no injuries were present on his body, no damage was done to his armour and he was far from tired. “Dealing with those vine serpents definitely paid off, not a single hit” he chuckled while glancing over at the tired bandits, “Ya all look worn out, guess that’s all the entertainment I’m getting from this squabble” he mused.

“Entertainment!? Ye believe we here to be yer jesters!?” one of the bandits shouted out in frustration before charging at him, before the bandit even traversed half the distance a curved double edged blade dug through his torso.

Sly stood before the dying bandit with distaste on his face, he raised the pole-blade with one hand and the bandit rose with it until he hanged three feet off the ground. “Yo kyle do you need these guy’s experience or you just want their loot?” he asked without glancing away from the now dead bandit.

“Nah man just trying to survive, you won’t believe what I got on me already!” Kyle chuckled while musing over the other ‘loot’.

Sly shrugged and pulled his pole-blade out of the bandit, before the corpse even hit the ground only two bandits stood alive with Sly standing between them.

The two turned to run but a series of slashes quickly killed them, Sly wiped the blood off his blade using one of the bandit’s balaclavas he picked up. He walked over to Kyle who was now sitting down on the snow watching the unconscious bandit waking up,

Sly sighed at the sight and swerved to his direction. He stood over the woozy bandit while raising his pole-blade, he spun it upside-down and stabbed downwards into the bandit’s chest. The bandit immediately paled and stared up as blood bubbled out of his mouth, Sly pulled out the blade and turned back towards Kyle who began to stand up. “What no gratitude?” Sly asked while cleaning his blade.

“Pfft, I had it under control” Kyle said as he stared off at his inventory.

“Sure you did” Sly added with sarcasm.“So what you doing all the way out here in the forest? Being chased by bandits? Pissed someone off apparently?” Sly cut straight to the chase.

“Pretty much yeah, apparently the bandit group around here has some leadership issues I didn’t know about. As for what I’m doing here in the forest? Long story…” Kyle drifted off into explaining what he’d done so far as they walked.

“So let me get this straight” Sly said as he stopped right when Kyle did “First you landed over another player, hilarious by the way, strayed over to some big ass magical wall keeping demons out of our area, climbed said wall, leaped off onto a hungry ass demon, injured said demon some fucking how, respawned, got recruited by bandits, blackmailed said bandits, robbed a bank, blew up a guard post and levelled up multiple times from an assist kill on the previous demon?” he counted on his fingers as he spoke.

“Blew up the guard post first then robbed the bank, oh and set an assassination for the annoying guards at the town gate” Kyle corrected.

“That…no that’s not what…matters…” Sly groaned in annoyance “So what we doing here then?” he asked.

Kyle scratched his chin and looked around “Ask him where the entrance is at” he pointed at the unconscious Regg being dragged by Sly.

Sly nodded with an impartial expression, he crouched down by the man and slapped him a couple times across the face. “We!!wahh-!” Regg woke up with a sudden scream but was stopped by Sly’s palm, “Yo dumbass, where’s the entrance and if you scream again I’ll start pulling more teeth out understand?” he said with a bored tone.

Regg nodded with wide eyes and Sly removed his hand, “I be needing to look around…sir?” he said with uncertainty.

Sly looked at him as if asking ‘Seriously?’ then stood up as he grabbed hold of Regg’s hair and pulled him up “There you go, where at?” he asked with a commanding tone.

Regg held himself up on his knees to where Sly wasn’t pulling on it anymore and looked around, “That be the one” he pointed towards one of the trees.

Sly walked over pulling a groaning Regg behind him “This tree?”.

Regg nodded with tears now leaking out of his eyes “Y…It is!J..just…let me...kn-” Sly let go and Regg fell to the ground.

Kyle walked over with a sigh “You’re too impatient K-” he stopped talking the second Sly turned to glare at him “Right…just I.G.Ns, sorry” he apologised.

In the meantime Regg had crawled over to the tree and began knocking and cursing under his breath, moments later the tree’s side opened.

Sly stared at the entrance for a couple moments “Dope” he said in acknowledgement, he then crouched down and grabbed one of Regge’s legs and dragged him inside giving the goblin only a brief glance.

Kyle followed his now too excited friend (“Pretty much my reaction? I guess?”), the goblin said nothing as it glanced at the three with confusion clear on its face.

“Damn dark in here, how far down does this go?” Sly said as he dragged a half conscious Regg down the stairs.

“Their hideout isn’t all the way down, that’s where the goblins live. There’s a hidden entrance somewhere on the way, the rat knows where…if he can stay conscious enough to remember that is” Kyle mused as he followed.

Sly stopped momentarily “Oi shit bandit, stand up and walk. Don’t even think of taking off, you’ll find I’m quite accurate with throwing my weapon”.

The sound of Regg groaning and standing up could then be heard “Aye…”. Suddenly a light engulfed their descent, Regg had pulled out a torch and somehow lit it. He descended the stairs with the both of them following behind him, after a long minute or so they stopped. Regg began moving his palm on the wall until he found what he was looking for, he pushed in the stone and the sound of gears filled the tunnel.

Sly stared with mouth agape at the hidden doors opening, like a child watching his dreams come true.

Suddenly the light flickered as Regg threw the torch at Sly’s face catching him off guard ”Son of a bitch!”, he rushed into the new tunnel right after.

Before Regg could fully go through the door way Kyle had grabbed his arm and pushed him into the wall, “And where do YOU think you’re going?” he asked while pressing Regg’s face into the stone.

“Fuck! I’ma kill this little sh-” Sly raised his pole-arm to stab at the bandit.

“Nah bro, we need him. Take him to the leader, she’ll deal with him and give us an easier time explaining her dead subordinates” Kyle quickly explained.

Sly frowned “More like insubordinates” he lowered his pole-blade from Regg’s colourless face. “Hold this” he held out his weapon to Kyle who took it , Sly smiled as he crouched down to grab the torch.

“What are you…” Kyle was about to ask.

Sly pulled Regg out of Kyle’s grip and shoved him into the tunnel where he quickly rose to his knees attempting to flee, Sly kicked him aside and stomped over his chest. “Showing him what happens when you fuck with me” Sly said with anger clear in his voice contradicting the smile he wore, he crouched down and stared straight into Regg’s eyes. Sly turned the torch upside-down and with his free hand pulled down the bandit’s pants while he tried to struggle away, Sly shoved the still lit torch inside and kept it there as Regg screamed with an inhuman voice.

“Too real for your own good they said, self-correcting system they said. Let’s see how that system reacts to this!” Sly mused, after Regg lost consciousness due to the pain Sly pulled the surprisingly still lit torch out and noticed the bandit’s pants taking fire. “Shit!” he cursed as he immediately stood up and began stomping on the flame.

“Fuck don’t kill him yet!” Kyle also cursed as he rushed over and also began stomping the slight flicker of heat.

After making sure the bandit wasn’t about to catch fire Kyle tapped Sly’s shoulder “Your fuck up, you carry him” and walked off down the tunnel.

“But-God damnit” Sly cursed as he bent down and grabbed Regg’s arms then began dragging him down the tunnel “Yo wait up!”.

They spoke as they walked through the long tunnel “So what do you mean by self-correcting?” Kyle asked while noticing the holes in the tunnel where bandits would supposedly hide to ambush.

Sly sighed “I know we said we wouldn’t mention it but seriously dude, what’s with the cutting yourself out of social media when this game was announced? You missed out on so much juicy information!” he exclaimed.

Kyle scratched his head “Ehh…You know…I ain’t a stat whore like you guys, more playing for the lore and experience high. What’s the point of experiencing something new if there aren’t any risks or unknowns involved?”.

Sly thought it over for a couple moments “Filthy casual” he joked.

“Fuck off” Kyle responded with a satire tone, “Just answer my question, I know you’re needing to flaunt about the system anyway” he glanced back at him.

Sly shrugged “Ya got me, the system can be explained fairly basically. The developers created a personality system that entirely depends on the player’s actions then continued by their reactions, the system takes everything into account, like seriously everything! Emotion, posture, interest, stats, reputation, player knowledge on the situation and even all the above from other players that interacted previously with said player and NPC. It’s insane, way insane. I ain’t no master programmer but just the concept of that is mind blowing, in theory impossible!” his tone grew more excited as he explained “The most incredible parts of the system though isn’t just NPC to player interaction but the quest and skill systems!” Kyle prepared himself for a long one sided conversation.

“The developers created a set amount of quests the players can trigger which then depending on what the player and others within that quest’s range do the quest evolves and changes, from those events even more quests are created and then more from those and from then on you have an infinite quest creation system!” he chuckled “It’s complete insanity! I mean, how the hell do they moderate it!? Oh right speaking about quests, what’s the reward for this one you’re on anyway?” he asked.

“Main rewards are map progression, civilian ID to enter towns and cities but I’ve also found out something interesting. You know how classes have two types right?” Kyle glanced back to see him nod “Well this artefact I robbed out of that bank gave me progression to Unique classes called Lord classes, do you know anything about them?” he slowed down his pace for Sly to catch up.

“Not much, I know there are specific skill and item requirements for each unique class. Some are called advanced set classes as in they have a similarity between them and also require the completion of a quest to acquire, in my opinion it’s all just bullshit to add content, not that the game’s lacking content that is” he laughed “The quest giver probably has some information on it, just ask em for it maybe they’ll give it to you” he shrugged.

“Maybe, oh and also. Leave the talking to me” Kyle said with a serious tone.

“Why?” Sly asked rolling his eyes. “You have a…4th wall breaking tone when speaking to NPCs” Kyle said after momentarily thinking an answer over.

“Fucking roleplaying casual” Sly added with a sigh.

“Yo look a door” Sly spoke again moments later.

“No shit, that’s the entrance” Kyle said quickening his pace “Shit, right forgot. You’re gonna have to give up your weapon to go thro-” Kyle began explaining.

“Fucking hell no!” but Sly cut him off.

“It’s just till we come back out, don’t worry too m-” Kyle again got cut off.

“You mad? They’re fucking bandits! Fuck me if I’m going in there unarmed” Sly reached out for pole-blade.

Kyle sighed “So…what now? You going to wait outside for me?” he asked.

Sly frowned and dropped Regg behind him then stepped over to Kyle and took his pole-blade “I.Am.Going.Inside.Bad.Ass.Hide.out.Armed” he said each word with emphasis.

“Fine, follow my lead and look as intimidating as possible!” Kyle said giving up, he knocked on the door. One of the iron barred windows on the doors opened inwards revealing Kai’s face “Newbie ye back! Boss’s waitin for ye!” the bearman exclaimed as he unlocked the door, “Who this be? And what ye…Regg?” his eyes widened in surprise at the unconscious bandit officer.

“Long story Kai, seems like Regg works under some other boss you got around here? Didn’t like how I treated Regg so he sent him and some lackeys after me, my friend here took care of em though their corpses are still rotting out there. Thought killing Regg would have been a pain for you all so we just brought him somewhat intact, mind letting us in?” Kyle explained in length.

Kai nodded “Ye come on in, lemme inspect yer inventories” he waved them in and relocked the door behind them after draggin the still unconscious Regg inside. Kyle showed Kai his inventory producing a wide open drooling mouth expression from Kai “Ye truly went and did it lad? Robbed a dam mage bank? Where be the trinkets though? Already exchanged em? Ye work fast!” Kai laughed while scratching his cheek.

“Yeah figured the quicker I did the better, don’t want no tracking devices that I don’t know about on me” Kyle shrugged producing another laugh from Kai

“Smart lad, ye’ll fit right in! Your turn warrior” he turned and looked at Sly.

Kyle also glanced at his clan mate noticing certain changes in his appearance as he let Kai inspect his inventory, Sly’s eyes were glowing bright while a violet aura flickered like energy all over his body and his fangs had grown long enough to reach half his chin. “Aye all in order, I’ll be needin to keep that pole-arm of yours for yer stay now” Kai said while frowning at the sudden change in Sly’s appearance.

“No you won’t, I’ll be passing by those doors and nobody else dies. Out of the way” Sly spoke with a slight echo in his commanding voice as each word sent a sudden force of energy throughout the room. Kyle suddenly remembered something and inspected Kai

Dusk Blades Brigadier General [Kai Shao Ren] Level 112

Kyle felt his gut rupture as his expression suddenly and quickly paled, “Sly hand the man your weapon” he said bluntly.

Sly glanced at him with confusion then turned to glare back at Kai “Why wou-” Kyle saw his face go completely white as his eyes went wide, “Take it” Sly said immediately handing over his pole-blade.

Kai roared in laughter as he took the weapon in hand, nothing more than a stick in this giant’s hand “Know when not to fight, good skill to keep ye selves alive lads!” he joked. He walked over to the other door and unlocked it for them “There ye go, don’t worry lad It’ll be safe with me” he said glancing at Sly who simply walked out of the room without responding.

“Uh…what about Regg?” Kyle asked before walking out. Kai glared at the bandit on the floor “Hhmm…Teo!” he shouted without looking away suddenly.

“Uhh…Kyllix…” Sly spoke from outside making Kyle turn towards him.

Walking towards them was a hulking humanoid creature almost as large and wide as the doors, the being had dark green skin, short brown hair, a large wide jaw and muscles all over his body. “Out of way little wolf” the green giant said with a deep harsh voice making Sly slide out of the way with a raised brow.

“Oi Teo! Get in here ye big lump of an Orc!” Kai shouted again making Teo flinch. Both Kyle and Sly inspected the Orc

Dusk Blade Bandit [Teio’lek Giantborn] Level 35

Teo walked into the room and an amused smile could be barely seen by Kyle as he saw Regg unconscious on the floor.

“Carry this traitor for them lads, take ‘im to the boss” Kai commanded him, Teo nodded then crouched down to onehandedly grab Regg by the waist. Teo held Regg under his shouler with one arm and turned to look at the two of them.

“Uhh…yeah this way…” Kyle nodded to Kai in thanks and turned to show the way. “Oh right, why’d you just start and grind without me you shit?” Kyle glanced at Sly and frowned.

Sly chuckled “Cause you’re always a slow start gaping at every little thing for hours before you actually start to level! Also I wanted the extra skill points as quickly as possible!”. Kyle stared at him in confusion for a couple moments before Sly face palmed “Right…From level 1 to level 45 you gain five skill points per five levels till level 25 then ten skill points per five levels till level 45, after that you stop gaining them until you master a class and by that I mean actually going through the mastering trial not just acquiring the class. Hells did you not even read the beginner guide or the holosite description?!”.

Kyle simply shrugged “I have you for Wikipedia, one with no pictures and little sources unfortunately “he chuckled.

Sly sighed “Whatever, you probably would have picked any class that sounded cool the first chance you got anyway” he said while glancing at Kyle “How’d you get that title anyway?” he said frowning.

“Huh?” Kyle looked away faking disinterest “What title?”.

Sly continued to frown “The sad liar title I already know how you got, talking about your set title mad man” he said with grin.

Kyle almost tripped “You can actually see that? Damnit was hoping it didn’t show…” he groaned “Damnit! I got it for dealing damage to that demon, something about dealing damage to an entity 50 levels higher than me?”.

Teo grunted behind them “Shrimp hurt demon? Me pay to see, you use bow and arrow? Or fight like man?” he asked with sarcasm.

Both of them glanced back at the Orc “What’s so great about Demons? They’re just a different race like you are to us, actually I’m pretty sure you’re half giant! Couldn’t you beat one?” Sly asked.

Teo frowned making him look even uglier “Me beat Demon? Little wolf be mad one, weak Demon eat me alive! You no from here adventurer! Imp make you slave! Lesser? You only small juicy snack!” he said with seriousness.

Sly raised a brow “Now that I think about it, why do you speak like that? Your English can’t be that bad if you live around so many demi-humans. Yo character flaw right there!” he chuckled.

Teo growled “Me speak no good cause me giant blood, be words me can no say sometimes!” he said angrily.

Both turned away trying to hold back their smile, they had almost reach the end of the hideout. Sly looked around at the various shady and murderous looking individuals “Never thought my first ‘Town’ would be some bandit hideout with shady ugly bastards all over the place…Come on? Where’s all the Elf chicks! Beast women! Succubii!” he said in a low voice with little enthusiasm.

“Don’t even start that conversation…I can just imagine what some players will do to some poor NPCs…” Kyle said as they approached the hideout’s main building.

Sly laughed out loudly “Oh you know some sad fucker did just that and worse! Also how the hell would the mods know? Do they observe NPC behaviour? Player cams? Player mods? How wou-ooaahh” he suddenly stopped to stare towards the fort only to be knocked down by Teo who kept moving and only stopped after noticing he hit him. “F-Fuck…” Sly cursed as he rose to his knees.

“Teo! Adventurer Kyllix! What’s going on here!?” a female voice shouted towards them. They both looked up at Shirley who had walked over “Why’s that cockroach knocked out cold?” she asked while frowning.

“Well apparently he doesn’t work for the same boss as you, didn’t like me throwing him under the…cart. Him and his lackeys were waiting for me outside the hideout, were going to give me a beating if it wasn’t for my friend!” Kyle explained in annoyance.

Her eyes widened in surprise momentarily before her expression turned nothing less than evil “Oh? Did he?” she glared directly at Regg who was still unconscious, “Bring him in, adventurer the boss is waiting for you as well” she gestured for them to follow as she turned and headed towards the fort.

Kyle was about to follow then noticed Sly was still kneeling, he kicked his leg lightly getting his attention “Oi, you coming?” Sly snapped out of his daze “Huh? Oh! Yeah” he stood up and they followed in behind her with Teo closely behind.

Sly whistled at the various trophies adorning the first room but his sight immediately settled back on his previous target, his eyes remained completely stuck on something above Shirley’s head as they twitched and she glanced back with unease before turning back and opening the door. Kyle whispered “Damn weeb” with a short chuckle.

“Fuck off” Sly responded looking away, they followed into the bandit leader’s office and Teo bet forward to lay Regg inside before walking away.

Fiurj’a was writing something down and looked up as they entered “Oh you’re finally ba-Reginald? Shirley what’s going on?” she frowned and pointed at Regg’s still unconscious body albeit some movement now came from his expression.

Shirley crossed her arms and smiled “Looks like I was right, bastard’s working for that old fool!” she said with excitement and humour.

Fiurj’a glanced at Regg then momentarily glanced at Kyle and Sly before settling on Shirley “What happened?”.

Shirley shrugged “Ask him” she pointed at Kyle who grinned

“Hahaha…We-My friend kind of killed all the other lackeys that came with him right after beating the crap outa him…” he responded.

Fiurj’a’s frown turned back to surprise as she looked at Sly “You beat Reginald?” he nodded back before going back to looking around the room, “What’s that sme-Wait, are you a fire mage?” she glanced between Sly and Regg.

“Nope, he was a pain to force back here and caused some annoyances so I made sure he knows what happens when you annoy me” Sly gestured at Regg’s groin “The torch was surprisingly still lit afterwards” he ended with an amused smile.

Shirley suddenly covered her mouth with one hand and held her stomach with the other as she laughed, Fiurj’a just stared at him blankly “You castrated him? With a magic fire torch?” her eyelids slightly twitched as she said it.

Sly chuckled “Not sure, doubt that’s all I burned down there. Oh we may have also stomped on what remained…” he added with a thoughtful expression, Shirley could no longer hold back and slid back on the wall behind her as she laughed.

Fiurj’a held her face with her hand momentarily as she regained her composure “I apologies for the complication, we’ll take care of him from here. I’m glad that the mission went without any further ones though, the artefact made it back safe and whole” she pulled out the item from behind her desk and sat it upon it.

“About that, mind explaining about it and these Lord classes? Seems like I was left out of some…details” Kyle commented with a knowing expression. She nodded back “This artefact is an ancient relic from the ghost age, a period of time in our history that we have no knowledge of what so ever. We have information from temples, ruins and such from time before and after but the ones of that time period contain…no inscriptions or anything that provides a use in describing it”.

Both Kyle being a sucker for role-play and Sly being a sucker for exploration took great interest in her explanation “Artefacts like this one are all that we have, seeing as those years came after the Demon age we knew for sure these contained immense power of some sort but never truly figured out what until recently. Apparently when one of your people, the adventurers, come into contact with one they receive specific powers that replace the need for a class. Similar to classes this power gives one skills and abilities along with progressing titles but there is certain strange differences from normal or even advanced classes…”

She grabbed the artefact and studied it with her eyes “The two recorded classes have been a Lord and a Beast class, Lord of Deities and Beast of Chaos. These two adventurers are now the leaders of your people here in our realm but also make war with each other, the strange thing about the two classes? They lock the user to specific weapons, disabling the use of any others completely. Fortunately, it was found out from the two class holders that the classes accept the weapon the user is mostly attuned with but will not allow any further wielding of others” she put the artefact down as she stared at the both of them “You both have no class so I assume you are interested in these powers?”.

Kyle and Sly looked at each other momentarily before they both nodded “Yes we are, although I would like to know why I was given the option for a Lord class and not a Beast class” Kyle asked.

Fiurj’a pointed at the item in front of her “This is known as the Artefact of Racial Lords for a reason, to gain access to a Beast class you require contact with the Artefact of Elemental Beasts”.

“Do you know what classes are available for Lords?” Sly added.

She shook her head “It is unknown, whether there is a limit of what can be considered an element or a race viable for these classes but one thing is for sure. You gain access to one depending on what you do, if you’re looking for a specific one it should be quite logical how to progress towards it. Although I will warn you that you do not simply acquire these classes, once you are found qualified for a class you are given an undeniable trial who even the current class owners describe as disturbing without giving actual details”.

Sly nodded “So the Lord classes are tied to races but do sentient races also count?...Lord of nekos…” his eyes drifted to Shirley who had mostly calmed down and was uninterested in the conversation as she cleaned her knives, a visible chill went over Sly as he looked away. Kyle saw it and curiosity overtook him as he inspected both Shirley and Fiurj’a

Dusk Blade Commander [Shirley Lis’colt] Level ??? Dusk Blade High Commander [Fiurj’a Lis’colt] Level ???

(“Hidden levels?...Yeap…don’t fuck with them…”) they both thought to themselves