Thane stared at the Harpy dumb-founded “She…”

“She got through.” Raven mused as he dusted himself off while approaching the warrior “So Mentor…are you free to answer some questions now or?”

Thane looked back at him with raised brows “Ugh…What?”

Raven pointed at the still dissipating Harpy “She had explained up to why guilds do not co-operate when it comes to Delves. But I have a question about the corridors, by staying open for an entire week. Does that mean you only get a week before the door closes? And what happens when it does?”

Thane rolled his eyes “Gah…too late to whine about it I guess.” He mumbled while glancing over at the Delve entrance before turning back to Raven “Yes we only get a week below D1, that is what levels are called by the by. And once the door between D1 and D2 closes, nobody else is allowed through that corridor for an entire week. After which the corridor needs to be conquered once more. Anybody left beneath D1 can stay there, but will have to warp out since the door is locked.”

“Hm…interesting. How high a level does D1 take you up to without having to deal with massive experience loss due to level difference between player and mob?” Raven then asked.

Thane glanced over at the Delve entrance seemingly in thought “Ah…I think D1 mobs cap out at 20? So you’re seeing 20 levels in total. Divided between your three Specs.”

“Hm, and what about D2 then?” Raven asked as the math flowed through his head.

“For each Delve level the monster level-cap increases by 20.” Thane quickly explained “So D2 is 40, D3 is 60 and so on.”

Raven raised a brow at that number “That much? Doesn’t that mean monsters cap out entirely at D5?”

“No, monsters as far as we know do not have a level cap like us players. We cap out at 90, who by the way there has only been five players to ever reach cap.” said Thane.

“Just five? Seriously?” Discordia asked, having finally pulled herself together and joined them.

“Yeap, just five.” Said Ceres as she suddenly appeared next to them, covered from head to toe in frost and shivering whilst hugging herself.

“The hell happened to you?” asked Thane as he looked her up and down.

“D-Don’t wanna talk about it…” she sent him a brief glare before turning to the two newbies “Anyway, l-leveling in this game isn’t as easy as you think it is. Between level 1 and 20 of any Spec it’s fairly normal but once you hit 20, things get complicated. Since you only gain experience points for monsters of the same total level as you or higher.”

“So you gain no experience what so ever for monsters beneath your level?” Raven asked in surprise, he had played several MMORPGs before and that was new to even him.

“Unfortunately.” Responded Thane as he poked Ceres’s frozen rifle in amusement “That means you need to find an open corridor down into D2 to level from 20 onwards and then a corridor down into D3 to level from 40 and onwards.”

Now it made sense to Raven, this meant that there was a window for players to level further and once that window closed they’d have to look for another one also limited window. Something lit up within Raven, an urge, an excitement he hadn’t felt in so long. A passion he had left behind years ago, to find a place in the world.

But the world has spat him back out. He wasn’t irritated by it though, no Raven was grateful. Because albeit all the dreadful days he’s had to go through these past two years, he felt changed. Raven felt matured, he felt like he could do anything if he tried. And right now, this game…was what he wanted to bet on.

“Oh but before you yodel over into the Delve, I highly suggest checking out the combat-training field and then checking in with the main quest NPC.” said Ceres, pulling him out of his thoughts.

“Quest? Right…” Raven remembered Quests…mainly the more irritating ones. “How good…experience do quests give in this game?”

Thane and Ceres glanced at each other briefly before chuckling “Quests in COTD don’t give experience points.“ Thane began explaining ” Only item rewards. The main questline will get you your basic equipment and the side quests are all about crafting. What you really should look into are Delve Quests.”

“Delve Quests?” Discordia repeated, she seemed to be taking notes again.

“Yup, Delve Quests are the core quest lines after the main quest’s completion.” Ceres was explaining now “They’re mostly story but they are very important themselves. Through them you’ll unlock different weapon skills and learn new spells. Which make up about half your skill/spell book progression.”

“Learning skills through…quests?” Raven was getting slightly confused himself now, he hadn’t ever heard of such a thing either.

“Aren’t the devs getting a tad bit ahead of themselves? That’s what you’re thinking right now aren’t you?” said Thane with a grin as he noticed Raven’s expression “Trust us, give it a try for a few days then you tell us what you think then. Anyway unless you have any more questions…” he glanced at Discordia “You’ll find the combat-training area that way and the main quest start over at the castle.” He gave them directions to both places before both him and Ceres said their goodbyes, leaving the two newbies alone.

Raven watched the two players walk off, heading into the Delve entrance themselves. A large circular building of stone with a wide open cave-entrance like doorway.

“So-Uh-Uhm…” Discordia tried to get Raven’s attention as he watched after the two Mentors take their leave.

He glanced back “I’ll be checking the combat-training area first then.” He noticed her eyes widen seemingly pleading. Raven wasn’t the type to help others unless it benefited him, he knew she’d slow him down but on the other hand (“Nothing wrong with gathering a couple meat-shields…”) “Want to come along? Maybe we’ll find others to party with before going down below.”

Discordia’s eyes lit up as she nodded “Y-yeah!”

Raven opened his Party window, a simple box with six slots including his name and level at the very top and three buttons below. Invite player, Party options and a greyed out Leave party. Raven pressed Invite player, he didn’t need to actually press it as thinking of the option alone would activate it but he hadn’t gotten used to that system yet. It was fairly new after all.

A new smaller window opened for him, a list of nearby players sorted by closest distance first. He immediately found DiscordiaX at the very top and pressed the Invite button next to it.

“So..Uh, shouldn’t we go for the main quest first? You know…to get our equipment?” She asked after accepting the party invite, followed by a notification appearing at the bottom right of Raven’s UI.

The chatbox becoming visible with it too (“Ah, that’s what I forgot to ask about! The chat!”) Raven realised he forgot to ask about the chatbox.

DiscordiaX has joined your party!

“What if we’re not sure what kind of equipment we want to use yet? What if the combat-training area has weapons available for us to test around with?” Raven offered as he turned to follow Thane’s directions “I doubt the Quest will give us the option to take the rewards at a different time.” He said simply, gesturing for her to follow before setting off down the street.

“Ah…good point.” Discordia walked beside him, keeping a few feet of distance between them as she had the entire journey.

“So thought of what guild to join yet?” Raven asked her as they walked.

“Hm? I-I don’t really know yet…I mean, Tiana’s guild seems to be the best option for me. Owning the Mer city and all…” Discordia responded, mumbling the last part.

“It is? Hm” Raven asked with an amused hum before he froze in place “Sh-Hah…” he held his own face in sudden frustration.

“What? What is it?” Discordia asked in confusion.

“They didn’t tell us what the differences between each race stat and skill wise are…” Raven said before making a long sigh.

“Ah…Maybe they forgot?” She offered with an awkward smile.

“Thane and Ceres probably thought we already knew…As for Tiana…” Raven then realised something, she hadn’t forgotten…This was on purpose. And it amused the hell out of him, as a chuckle escaped his lips muffled by his lowering hand whilst he glanced at the players around him.

“Uh-uhm…Are you…okay?” Discordia had taken a step away from him.

“Everything they explained to us, we could have figured out one way or another in the long run…” Raven began to explain in a low voice as he looked around them, seeming searching for something “All but one thing we cannot figure out on our own…” and he found it, seeing the well geared player pass them by he slightly stepped in the mage’s way.

“Hm? What do you want?” the human mage asked.

“Excuse me, we’re new and our Mentor seems to have forgotten to tell us about the differences between races when it comes to stats and skills. Could you-” Raven began to ask, but the player simply chuckled and stepped around him. Ignoring him completely as he walked away.

“Why did he…” Discordia began to ask, but was unsure as what to even ask.

“Because, it probably sets us back the most. And might mess us up later on.” Raven explained as he continued to look around “Hah…So much for community.” He realised this wasn’t just like any other game. Not just cause of the system, no COTD was different because of its player base.

“Wolves…” Raven mumbled out “Wolves every single one of them.” He was grinning wildly beneath his hand, fading away as he lowered it and turned to Discordia “Information is a weapon, and I’m guessing it is information we won’t get unless we join a guild. With the tutorial they somewhat appease us, they get control of us. By keeping this from us though, they set us back so they stay ahead. And they teach us in small groups so we’re easy to handle.” He was whispering now, seemingly contemplating out loud.

“No way...I-I’m sure someone would…” Discordia began to say.

But Raven cut her off by placing his hand over her mouth “No point, they’re all in on it. Just look at them glancing this way, smirking.” He whispered, looking around himself he noticed the many gazes glancing over them both.

Discordia seemed to be panicking now “W-what do we do then?”

Raven sighed “Join a guild.”

“But…we’re fresh spawns.” Discordia added.

His grin returned “Exactly, who would accept us? And…Hah! I’m guessing there aren’t many options for guilds in this game…Between the finite amount of cities and this…With this they also limit how much the player base is divided. Gaining the main guilds, the ones with the city and the information…more members.”

“What so...we just swallow it and deal with it until we reach a level some guild will accept us?” Discordia asked seemingly horrified. “W-What about the web? Surely someone made a video or a post about this!”

“Maybe…worth a check but…What would be the point of all this if someone did and it was easily accessible?” countered Raven as he willed open the VR-Dive station’s menu, a list of options and next to it a box full of shortcuts taking to several mods he had installed into his machine. One of them being a web browser.

“Uhm…” Discordia’s expression was at its palest as Raven glanced away from his browser, seeing that he quickly made his search finding out exactly what he was afraid of. “It’s all…”

Raven chuckled “Information inflation.” He said, while reading through the several hundreds of posts and scrolling through the videos of information on the subject. Very little of them agreed though, each post giving different information. Each video, as legitimate as it might have sounded also did the same. “You cannot hide information from the web. Not if it’s out in the open like most of it is…what you can do though…”

Raven closed his browser and sighed “Fake news…God damnit.”

“I-I don’t understand…” Discordia said as she glanced around.

“They’re hiding the real information by inflating the results with spam and bullshit, while making it look just as real and legitimate.” Raven explained “This way we won’t know what the hell is real. I have to admit, they’ve got us good.”

“So that’s it then?...” Discordia asked nobody in particular, while staring off down the street “What…what the hell is wrong with people?”

Raven snorted in amusement, gaining himself a glare by her “What is wrong? What did you think this game was? Some innocent social MMO? The rules were obvious enough, this is a wolf den. It’s the fucking jungle, eat or get eaten.” He glanced over at her, meeting her glare undisturbed “I suggest you ask for a refund, if you cannot deal with this much. Even I knew before I pressed download.”

He turned away to look down the street, at the players passing by, armed and ready for war be it blade or magic (“This is a business where people play and get paid.”) he smiled coldly, this was the fantasy MMO of wall street.

“Sh-Should I really?...” Discordia asked, seemingly contemplating his suggestion.

“Don’t feel bad, most of the players that started out with us back there probably haven’t figured it out yet. And when they do, most of them will probably quit too.” Raven assured her.

“But…isn’t this bad for sales? Isn’t it bad for the game in general?” Discordia asked, disbelief in her tone.

“In a way,” He shrugged ”Dedicated players are important, whales as we call them but its the casual that brings it all in. Which makes me wonder...how does this game keep itself afloat?”

Raven glanced over at her, seeing her distraught expression “Don’t worry over it, not everyone’s a wolf.” (“Some are just sheep, sheep that can make anything comfortable with little effort though.”) he thought while glancing away (“But wolves…wolves cannot control the urge.”) his cold smile returned, unseen by the Mer.

“Yeah…” she took a deep breath “Guess this is it for me, this…this just isn’t for me.” She chuckled awkwardly.

“Knowing where to call it quits is something to be proud of.” Raven told her without looking back “I hope you find what you’re looking for.”

“Mhm…thanks, Raven. Guess I, won’t really be seeing you around.” She chuckled again “Well, Uhm-goodbye.”

“Farewell.” Said Raven before she logged off, her character dissipating into sparks of green energy.

DiscordiaX has left the party!

Raven stood there briefly, his eyes narrowing as he glanced down at his own hand (“Knowing when it’s time to call it quits is something to be proud of…so what is it when you don’t?”) he asked himself, before looking up and continuing down the street.

Alone.