The Cleric immediately led me down into the depths of the abbey, down staircases and staircases. It seemed like we were walking for an extremely long time, maybe for thirty minutes or a little more. We ended up coming to a whole wall full of giant, ornate vault doors. They were roughly the size of an extremely large bull elephant, so just about 14 feet tall and it was pretty round, if not perfectly round, so the same all around pretty much. The Cleric knocked and extremely odd series of knocks with both of his hands and feet, kicking the door but having the door put out different tones of sound depending on where he hit with his hands and feet. It almost sounded melodic.. It took a few seconds for him to strike all the correct places, then he whipped out his mace he had hanging at his belt and took it with both hands and struck the middle of the door with the mace, dead center.

The door reverberated with the smashing noise it made, and it echoed down the dark, dimly lit hallways. The large door opened, gliding on smooth, well-oiled hinges. I would have thought it’d groan open with how big the door was, but, nope.The door swung all the way to the wall. The Cleric stepped inside, completely enveloped by the darkness of the room. I moved forward to enter the room as well, but all of a sudden, a blinding light enveloped me. A strange voice entered my mind. I thought for a second that my pod had caught a virus, but completely dismissed the thought the second I thought of it.

“Do you wish to be a carrier of the holy Light? A healer of the sick, a helper of the meager and poor? Do you wish to become a Cleric?” I heard it ask me in my mind. It wasn’t so much an outside force as it was just placed inside my head, like my own mental thoughts asking me this question. Thought manipulation? I’d have to look into it.

I thought to myself, Yes, I do wish to be a Cleric. My vision came back and next to my experience bar, to the left of it, at the bottom of my vision, there was tiny text where there was none before. It said in golden, raised letters: Cleric: And to the right was my level. It just said “Lv. 0” also in golden, raised letters. I could see now, and see into the vault. It must have been cloaked in shadow to people who were not clerics, and thus would blindly stumble their way inside.

Inside the vault was lit, just again by torches. In the vault were also small, glowing motes of just… light. Floating around. Particularly grouped around a pedestal in the center of the room. The other Cleric was standing there, waiting for me.

“Welcome to the order, Brother.” The Cleric said. I could actually see his name above his head now, his name was Brother John. Previously to me before it just said a generic “Cleric”, which I did think was odd but didn’t question it. The motes of light moved out of my way as I moved toward the pedestal.

The motes glowed sharply the closer I approached the pedestal. What looked to be on the pedestal was a set of armor, sitting on a crude wooden mannequin. The armor had a base of rough looking chainmail to it, but it was plate armor, no doubt about it. Just the texture of the armor was chainmail like but covered in...scales, maybe?

“Is this dragonscale armor?” I asked my new Brother of the Light.

“Close. The scales are from beasts long gone from this world. Related to dragons, but not dragons. They had six legs, and were very volatile in personality as well as territory and mating, as well as talking to us humans or other species. They had faces like dragons, and it’s very likely that dragons descended from these quasi-dragons. They had extremely thick, but pliable and durable scales. These scales were great for producing armor that was as moveable in as leather, but protected like plate. However, our Cleric-Knight brothers went farther and created plate armor from these scales, to be extremely protected from danger. These scales even protect from any kind of flames, even Helfire. We called the beasts “Hurldrangurs”. An odd name but a fitting one, since they actually threw fireballs from their mouths by snapping their heads to and fro, but always hitting their target.”

I had read about Helfire. Most people think the word “Helfire” is a typo, but in the game’s lore, instead of “hell” being a place where demons roam and stuff like that, they’re different names for the generic versions of “heaven” and “hell”. The game isn’t too “viking” influenced but “Hel” is the opposite of a viking’s Valhalla, so it constantly gets mixed up, but the developers of the game just took “Hel” and made it their own. Supposedly there’s supposed to be an expansion revolving around Hel and Anirus, their version of “heaven” and where Cleric’s “powers” are supposed to come from. Of course gods make their occasional appearance in the game as well. The gods in the game were, oddly based on the elements, those being Earth, Water, Fire and Air, along with Dark and Light also being conflicting gods who had events run about them much more often than the Elemental gods did, or so I read online about the game.

“Helfire is extremely powerful, isn’t it?” I asked John.

“Yes, it is, which makes this armor all the more valuable. You may have this set of armor…” my inner greed thoughts were spinning madly at the thought of getting this set of armor. I could wear it and sell it later when I out-leveled it, surely. “But it must be the first and last set of armor you ever wear in this realm.” Ouch! That came with a steep price. Still…

“But uh, what if I want to change classes later?” I asked him. Class changing was still a mechanic, though slight, for new players like myself.

“Inspect the armor.” He told me. So, I took a piece off the mannequin and did so. I took a glove.

[Gloves of Hurldrangur Scale]

+100 STR

+90 AGI

+125 CON

+ 100 INT

+50 CHR

+10 LCK

+75 PER

Set (2): 2 pieces of this armor grant the user increased power, reducing cooldowns on various skills by 30%. Every piece after this decreases cooldown by an additional 3%. Also grants ability to scale walls using gloves and boots, if the wearer has them.

Set (3): Grants increased health pool.

Set (4): Grants a magical shield that can absorb up to 1,000,000 damage.

Set (5): Grants a magical shield that can absorb 2,000,000 damage.

Set (6): Grants [Hurldrangur Flame Lance] skill.

Set (7): Grants [Hurldrangur Nature Mortar] skill.

Set (8): Grants [Hurldrangur Dark Flamethrower] skill.

Gloves forged in the flames of various elemental Hurldrangurs, this armor is impervious to ninety-nine percent of things found on this planet. The only thing that could pierce this armor is a lance from an angel of Anirus.

And then at the bottom, in large, golden text:

NOTICE: THIS ARMOR SOUL-BINDS TO THE USER AND SCALES WITH LEVEL.

I marveled in awe at this armor. This was probably unprecedented in the history of this game’s world. This armor was thousands of years old, but it still gleamed like new in the motes of light hovering around it. It was also sharply embossed with orange swirls and flowing lines on the armor as well, on top of the Hurldrangur scales. The soulbind notice was actually no big deal though. In other games, soulbound just meant that you wouldn’t lose the armor on death from monsters or player killers, which there were a scarce amount of in this game. PKers, that is. But you also could not sell the armor. You could destroy it for no return as well in most games, some you could get a small material return which you could actually sell, but otherwise...

“Does all of the armor have stats like this?” I asked John.

“Eh, more or less depending on the armor piece.” He answered. “But, as you know, this is extremely rare armor. Few, if any other complete sets of armor are still in existence. Some have fallen away due to care not being taken to polishing and cleaning the armor. This is one of the only sets left in existence. That being said…” he paused. Somewhat menacingly, I thought, but didn’t say a word.

“I will award you this armor piece you are holding, on second thought, if you can slay the dragon Neftngiz, at the top of Red Mountain.” I looked at him blankly. Did I pass the required time to snatch the armor and run out of the room? Why did I ask so many questions?! Now I’d only get one piece of armor for slaying one measly dragon!

I quickly had an idea. I brought out my Timer and attempted to turn it back ten seconds. John just stood there, slightly smiling at me, as he had been for the last few minutes. And then he said, “Magical artifacts do not work on this floor of the abbey.” And then he waved his hand and the Timer, with a small popping noise, disappeared from my hand and went back into my inventory as I saw a notification flash on the bottom right of my vision.

“Crap.” I muttered to myself. “Alright, I’ll take your quest and kick the fuck out of this dragon,” I said, angry with myself for not taking the armor sooner and learning the lore later.

“Tsk, swears are unbecoming of an up and coming Cleric such as yourself.” he snatched the gauntlet back from me and placed it reverently on the mannequin again.

“Red Mountain is months away though! How the hell am I supposed to get there?” Cleric John started pushing me out of the vault room. I guess the AI for the Cleric realized its mistake and realized it was about to give away a very powerful set of armor. Oh well, I’ll earn it the old fashioned way, with hard work… and a lot of blood, sweat, and tears!