I woke up early the next morning ready to start my day and my stomach grumbling for some food. I forgot I went to sleep with my gear on and decided to map my gear to a hotkey button on my UI, creating a new button and setting it off to the side. Then there was a knock at my door. I said for the person to enter and it was one of the serving girls, dressed in her normal “wench” attire, I supposed you could call it.

“Sir, compliments of the cook of the inn. They said feel free to call for seconds as well, with this bell.” She handed me a tray full of plates of food. “Also if you push this button on the side…” She pushed a button on the side of the tray and legs extended out of the tray, metal legs, to make a small table. I was thoroughly impressed.

“What kind of engineering is this?” I asked her as I grabbed a fork and ate some scrambled eggs.

“It’s a combination of Gnomish and Dwarven engineering, sir. Both races work together on all sorts of inventions, to be quite honest. It’s only come about in recent years that they decided to work together, taking a point from the Players in the world as well.” She had a point there. There were areas that I read about where PvP was not looked down upon, mostly arena fights, but otherwise the game was Player Versus Environment as could be, or PvE. Though I’m sure a lot of times killing bandits felt like killing an actual person, but if people had an issue with that, there were so many other things to do. In fact, I remembered my chests in my bag, but I wanted to learn more about this Archaeology profession I had. The serving woman was still standing there, obviously expecting a tip. I flipped her a 5 gold coin and asked,

“Is there someplace I can learn about the Archaeology profession in this city?” I took another huge bite of my food.

“Yes,” she answered. “Antivitz in town specializes in Archaeology, he’s across town though… and I don’t actually know the directions to get there, sorry.”

“No worries,” I answered. She promptly left the room and shut the door and left me to eat in peace. There were eggs, toast, ham, bacon and a small-ish steak, all either on the main plate or separated out onto other plates on the tray. I dug in heartily. After eating my fill, I left the tray with all the plates and silverware on it on top of the long dresser, and left the inn, after saying good day to the barkeep, a gruff looking man. Perhaps Olga was his wife.

I stepped out onto the wide side-street of Eunuch. I also hadn’t forgotten my letter in my bag but, quests could wait. There was phat loot to be had via Archaeology! And I made my way toward what I thought would be the other end of town, asking for directions along the way. Eventually, I made it to his shop.

The shop was in a little bit of a state of slight disrepair, the sign hanging off the handle for it being held up by one chain hanging, the other hanging unattached to anything. The shop looked well enough, the storefront window displaying some of his finds for sale. I took a look at one, a set of earrings. Beautifully polished to a shine in the sunlight and just looking like they were definitely magically enchanted, as if there were slight sparkles coming off of them. I couldn’t tell whether it was a visual effect or the sunlight.

[Earrings of Queen Naz’aresh]

PER +20

CHA+50

LCK +20

Beauty +100

Description: These earrings were worn by the queen of the long lost Naz’catec race.

Set (2) (Earrings, Headband): Beauty +200, CHA+100, LCK+20. Grants skill Charm: Influences someone to do your bidding for ten minutes. Race restrictions apply.

I thought this was interesting as you wouldn’t think mind control would ever be a thing in a fantasy world, but I was sure the cooldown on it was probably extremely high, as well as the price tag, which I glanced at. 5 million gold. That was a lot. I shrugged and looked at some of the other baubles in the large front window. Various jewelry pieces and helmets, one full set of armor that was epic and cost a lot more than the earrings. No idea how long it might’ve taken to find each piece of that in a dig, much less restore it to that degree. This world was truly magical.

I headed inside the shop to find the shop owner, Antivitz.

“Hello?” I called out. I walked more into the shop, moving through shelves of knicknacks and various pieces of gear on shelves. The shop was eerily quiet, and I felt a little uncomfortable. But I had a mission and I was not going to let it go! I made my way past all the shelving and… there was more shelving. And more. More aisles of shelves. Tons of shelves everywhere. I felt like I was in a maze. “What the hell is this place?” I muttered to myself as I kept walking in what seemed like an endless maze of shelves. “Hello?!” I called out. Nothing. No sound, just a bunch of sunlight still filtering into the window for some reason - Wait, sunlight behind me? I’ve been walking for ten minutes, I shouldn’t have sunlight behind me, I thought to myself. I turned around and the exit to the store was ten feet away from me still, like I hadn’t even moved.

I immediately turned and rushed out of the store, freaking out, and sat down away from the door against the shop wall, underneath the window. “What the fuck was that?” I asked myself.

“Hey! Yew! Outside me shop!” I looked up from my zoning out at the ground. There was a red haired dwarf coming toward me, a hard look in his eyes. “Whaddaya think yer doin’ inside me shop when I’m not there!?” He came up to me as I stood up. His eyes widened as he looked at me. “Are you…” he paused, looking at me with an armful of bags. “Get in the shop.” I opened the door for him and followed him inside, while asking:

“Why could I not go anywhere in your shop? I walked in and walked for ten minutes past shelves of stuff and then turned around and the door was still right behind me like I barely moved!”

“Ah, yeh dolt. That’s my anti-theft enchantment on the shop.”

“The whole building?” I asked, astounded. Though it occurred to me just then that if a stall could be enchanted with a visual effect, what couldn’t be done in this world? I shook my head to clear my thoughts.

“Ye, the whole building! Pretty effective isn’t it? It disables when I’m in the shop. Come to the front with me.” I followed him to the front counter which was on the far left side of the store, which explains why I couldn’t see it when I came in as well. The shop was actually medium sized, so he must make a decent bit off of these trinkets. “So, just what exactly do you need done from me? I know yer a Player of course, so it’s probably trainin’ ya be needin’, right?” I nodded.

“Yes, I was hoping to be trained in Archaeology. I was hoping you could assist me with that.”

“Just yer luck, I was just about to head out with a caravan, just let me put these things up in the back of the store and we’ll be on our way. From the looks of ye, you’re a Cleric right? The party can always use a healer.” He took the bags he was holding this whole time into the back of the store while saying that.

“Yes, I am a Cleric at the moment!” I said, loudly so he could hear me in the back. I just heard a “Great!” and some clattering and clunking as I waited for him to come out, as well as some muttering to himself. I looked around the shop and browsed his wares. He actually seemed to have everything organized by class, besides some various trinkets anyone could use. I looked for the Cleric section and found it near the edge of the store to the right of me, on the right wall. I browsed Epic and Rare weapons, each looked so well-crafted from various materials, but none lower than Mithril. A few seemed to be made from other materials I was unaware of. Unfortunately inspecting an item didn’t tell you what it was made of, but becoming a blacksmith or miner might, which I was going to do. Mining might help with Archaeology as well, I thought to myself.

Antivitz walked out carrying a two large warhammers, one enchanted with a blindingly bright light enchantment. Or what seemed to be “blindingly bright” but was just a weird visual effect, because I could look at it just fine. It was made out of some white material and was studded with golden rivets in a square on the sides and larger pieces of metal on the hammer faces in a square as well.

The other one was black, studded with red rivets in a square on the sides and on the hammer faces, the black one having smaller rivets on the hammer faces but looked like they were burning red-hot.. Both hammers were the bulky, square warhammers. Intricately carved and well-made, for sure. He held out the white warhammer to me.

“This is for you. I know your race and haven’t seen your kind in quite a long time, if I do say so myself. How long it’s been I’m not even sure, but your kind is the race that got me into the profession of Archaeology. Where other Dwarves wanted to stay content in their underground cities and live their life, I wanted to explore the world and learn about the world of Eir.” I forgot the game was an actual planet. I mentally smacked myself on the forehead. “And upon inspecting your own stats I see you have a hefty bonus to Archaeology yourself.” I took the warhammer from him, hefting its weight in my hands. I mentally discarded the old mace from my inventory, I wouldn’t be needing it anymore, as well as the old plank shield I had, since taking the warhammer automatically equipped it for me in my inventory. My armor immediately made a sheath to slide the handle of the warhammer into on my back as well, and I slid it in like I had been using it all my life. I didn’t even bother to inspect it, I knew it was a powerhouse of a weapon.

“Thank you, Antivitz. This means a lot to me. That weapon feels like it was meant for me.”

“That’s because it was, ye damn idiot, or, for your race at least. That hammer belonged to the last King of the Naz’catec, way back when the world was young. Well, younger at least. My hammer is its twin opposite and was wielded by the king’s brother, as well. There was some rivalry there to say the least, but no killing of siblings or anything like that. But, that’s a story for another time. The caravan is just outside of the city and we’re going to head to a new digsite I surveyed personally.”

He sheathed his warhammer on his back, which was slightly comical since it was taller than he was but it shrunk to fit, and pulled out a small, brown, laquered box. “These are for you as well.” I inspected the box as I took it.

[Archaeology Tools]

I opened the box. Inside was a bunch of small tools for detailing, like tiny toothpick things and brushes and stuff. I closed it and stowed it in my bag.

“Thank you, Antivitz, again. I have to ask, why are you being so nice and giving me all this stuff?”

“You don’t even know what your coming means to this world, do you?” He asked. That was an odd question. It was just a game for pete’s sake. “Did any more show up with you?”

“Uh, no, not that I know of.” I shrugged. I was pretty sure this was a one time thing, not to mention that weird USB stick on the bottom of the pod maybe having something to do with my race, but whatever.

“Well, if you run into any more “rare” races, make sure to bring them to me and I’ll kit them out as best I can. Also, the more digs you come on with me, I’ll give you some more gear for your specific race and class. Now, let’s head out!” And he walked past me to the door and I followed him out, into the bright sunlight.