We walked back into the open city, our stamina and HP boosted by 50% and our spirits high.

“Let’s get over to see Ananaya Zurich.” We made for the center of town with the skyscrapers. As we got closer, buildings got more modern, closer to real life. It was almost surreal, seeing people in armor and carrying shields and maces and swords, walking in and out of brick buildings and concrete buildings. There must only be a few people who want to ply their trade for these things in the game, otherwise I feel like there would be a lot more. If I worked as a cement-layer in real life, I sure as hell wouldn’t want to actually work doing that in a game I was supposed to be relaxing in and killing monsters and stuff. Of course people could sell the ways to do these things in-game or use the internet, or sell training services, or a number of other things.

We ended up asking a few people for directions, most gave us snooty looks and walked away, but there were some kind people. Plus with Antivitz and Unwog being so high leveled, some people even shied away from their power auras when they let loose. Even I was sent to the ground, my breath having been taken away by their aura when someone got confrontational. But only for an instant.

It took us a couple hours to find the correct building, and as it turns out, it was a small concrete building we were directed to. I was also shocked to find that in the middle of all the skyscrapers was an Orc village, almost laid out like Unwog’s village. I asked Antivitz and Unwog why there were mud, straw and stick huts in the middle of an industrial center like this.

“Well, I think the original founder of the city wanted his people to still have a place to go home to at the end of the day, so they kept the Orc huts,” Unwog answered. “I was very interested in becoming a trader at one point in my life, so I read all I could get my hands on about Orc history and what to expect from people, being an Orc. Turns out it’s not so bad nowadays, but we used to be slaves to Dwarves, Humans and Elves, among other races that were around at the time.” Orc children ran past me, looking like they were playing a game of tag. Admittedly, they weren’t smack in the center between like five skyscrapers or something and a bunch of concrete buildings. They were surrounded by a large field of grass and flowers, so it wasn’t that weird. It was just unsettling seeing the skyscrapers and other buildings in the distance while being surrounded by Orc huts since we had to cross through them. To be quite honest, I was preoccupied with my thoughts and hadn’t even noticed the grass we were walking through had changed from the cobblestone we were walking on previously. The gradd blades tickled my toes on my sandals and was long enough to feel on the sides of my feet as well.

“I feel like there might be some building restrictions here,” I mentioned.

“Yes, there are. Typically there are no building restrictions but the land was blessed by some very powerful enchanters and sorcerers, mages and a lot of different magic users who were friends with Usha’lak and wanted to help him preserve his Orcish village while the village’s expansion was happening. So the village can grow wider and bigger, but it’s going to take quite a while to grow to the size of this clearing.” Unwog mentioned to me again. It was very interesting to know all these pieces of lore and stuff, even if it didn’t play out to anything in the long run.

One thing I was thinking about on the way across the village, was the fact Antivitz never told me his last name, on the way there. I was thinking it’d be something cool like “Rockcrusher” or something super Dwarven.

“Nope,” he said. “It’s Blowhammer.”

“Well that’s…” I paused, stifling a laugh. “Kind of cool I guess. At least it has “hammer” in it.”

“It’s my family name, whaddaya want me to do, lad? Change it!? That’s against everything every Dwarf stands for! I take pride in my family name!”

“Between our two worlds, family names mean very different things. Where I come from, you can actually change your entire name to something else. Though it’s a pain to do it because you have to change your name on a bunch of governmental forms and stuff like that, get new cards issued and the like. It’s really bothersome so almost nobody does it for their family names, but a lot of people get their first names changed.” I shrugged. “It’s more of a vanity thing than anything really, I think.” Antivitz nodded.

“You Players are weird.” I chuckled a bit.

We ended up coming up to the doors of Tarqu Industries, and went inside. The doors were framed in iron and had thick glass windows on them, and the iron was unpainted like the rest of the building, so it was just a slate gray color all over the building and doors.

The inside of the building was very rich and snooty looking. The walls were marble along with the floor being a marble tile. It was almost disconcerting walking into such a pristine room from the outdoors.

There was a single large reception desk at the far wall, across the room from us. We approached the desk and there was a man in a suit and tie sitting on a wooden chair, rolling around to different paperwork on the desk around him.

“Hello,” I said. “We’re here to see Ananaya Zurich.” The man, who turned out to be an Elf so he looked extremely young, turned toward us, and smiled with pearly white teeth.

“Oh, really? What for?” This was said using an extremely condescending tone. It was obvious that he didn’t think we were here to see the CEO. But then again I was clad in but a helmet and burlap sacks, and a set of sandals. Maybe I should have stopped by the Auction House before we came here. We are, in the capital, after all.

“No need for the fucking tone, idiot.” I replied. I took out the letter from my bag and I handed it to him. He read the note.

“Obviously a forgery. Don’t come back until you have a reason for me to speak to you-” he was cut off by Unwog reaching over the desk, which was puny compared to Unwog, and lifted the secretary up and brought him to literally in front of his face. The letter dropped from his hands as Unwog picked him up. It was like watching a giant person pick up a doll. I picked up the paper and stowed it in my bag again.

“Listen here you sack of crap, we travelled a long way to see this lady for whatever my friend needs, so - urk!” Unwog dropped the secretary to the ground and fell to the ground, still in the same pose he was in. He didn’t even make a grunt as he hit the ground. He seemed to be frozen, like a statue. I inspected Unwog and found out he had been hit with a spell, that gave the status debuff of:

Statue V

Frozen, unable to move or react to anything.

Duration: One Hour

Welp, that’s a bummer, I thought. I appreciated the gesture from Unwog though.

“Well, that’s what he gets for manhandling me.” The secretary dusted himself off and walked back behind the desk.

“Yeah, bet you’d like someone to manhandle your stupid Elf ass.” I muttered under my breath. “Come on Antivitz, help me drag this lug out of here.” Antivitz chuckled a bit at the whole thing but assisted me in dragging Unwog about ten feet before I saw the Elf rapidly using his interface, a look of panic crossing his features. I smiled smugly and continued dragging my friend away towards the doors. Something happened that I’m sure someone saw upstairs, I thought to myself. That guy’s going to get it! Hah! We made it to the doors before the Elf cried out,

“Wait! Ananaya will see you now!”

“Nah, we’re good. Thanks!” I waved to him and we exited, dragging Unwog out with us into the noonday sun. As we left, I heard screaming, presumably from the Elf. Not my problem, I thought with a grimace as we pulled Unwog farther away from the doors to the edge of the dirt road that led to the building.