“The spiders are here? What are we gonna do? I barely even know how to fight!” Zen said in a panic as Devan dragged him into a wooden cabin full of sleek and black equipment. “What’s all this stuff?”

“It’s Moro protocol. Every Moro must wear their headset at all times. Even you,” Devan said hastily in a huff. He held up a pair of sleek, black glasses-like headset and shoved it into Zen’s hands. “This is a Mk. XIII state of the art Augmented Reality headset, given by the highest Elefthotech Societies themselves. Because most Moros are idiots and have generally no regard for their own life, you’ll need these to protect yourself. Once you wear them, they’ll feel like nothing is even there, and they’ll turn invisible. Only the GUI earpiece will remain on your ear. Now here’s the important part.”

Devan took out 3 black pieces out of his pocket. One of the black pieces had three holes while the other two looked like plugs.

“This is a GUI activation port. And this is a GUI chip. Different GUI chips will require varying amounts of ports to connect to. These are simple inventory and health plugs, which only occupy one plug each. Overtime, you’ll gradually pick up more GUI slots and more GUI chips so you can mix and match. Try them out. Stick the activation port and the chips to your AR Headset. They should morph into a more suitable position modeled after your ear.”

Zen placed the headset over his eyes. At first it was dark and hazy, but the goggles quickly disappeared and he could only feel earpieces on both sides of his head. With a click, he attached the three plug activation port to his left ear, and inserted the two plugs.

Instantly, a small side menu was visible on the far right of his vision, as well as a simple health bar. It was quite fascinating, because it genuinely looked like they were there, just to the right of his vision. Even though it looked stupid, he swatted at the air, and Devan huffed in amusement.

“There’s nothing actually there, dummy. Those GUI’s are now familiar with your presences and your headset. Even if you lose them, a carbon copy will materialize back onto your headset, and the previous one will disintegrate. Quite nice eh?” Devan said with a smug grin.

“They are cool,” Zen said in awe, moving his head around. “You’re an adventurer too, right? That must mean you’re a Moro too. Do you use headsets?”

“Sadly, I am a Moro too. However, over the years, I have sharpened my skill and senses, so I don’t wear a headset anymore. I got special permission from the high societies to do that, if I would act as a guide for all incoming Moros who enter the region. That’s also why I’m here.”

“Are skills also another feature of this headset?” Zen asked.

“Surprisingly, yes.” Devan answered. “If you think in your mind the word ‘skills’, a list of skills and your proficiency in them will appear on a sidebar to the left of your vision. They go from 0 - 20. Have a shot at it. And if you want to close it, just think of the word close.”

Zen forced the word skills in his mind, and instantly, a screen with a list of skills ranging from Marksmanship to Cooking to Researching appeared to his right. They were terribly low, and their proficiency levels were painfully accurate. A level 1 in crafting as an utter amateur. There were also little up arrows and down arrows beside a wide arrange of skills. He didn’t know what they meant, so it’d be best to ask Devan about it.

“Hey Devan? When I pulled up the skill screen, I saw a bunch of up and down arrows near some of the skills. What do they mean?”

“Oh, those are your interests.” Devan said. “The up arrows show what you like and the down arrows show what you despise. The more up and down arrows on a single skill represents how much you like or hate it.”

“But it says here I hate anything that deals with medical work. I haven’t even tried anything medical related!”

“The AR headset looks through any memories and brain matter and determines what you might like. For instance, do you think you could handle pulling someone’s intestines onto a rack to do surgery on them?”

“Okay, yeah no. Organs stuff would gross me out.”

“Exactly,” Devan said. “But you would still try to heal people in a pinch if you had to. Like if you were bleeding out then you would patch yourself anyways out of necessity, no matter how horrible and gross it was.”

“Understandable. What else should I know about the headset–”

A dissonant boom rang outside the walls, shaking the wooden cabin a little as dust settled to the floor. Devan groaned.

“Shit. Heater Crosserfangs. Our worst nightmare. I need to get to the front, so here’s some last bits of information about the headset. Think about the word help to get a list of words that unlock different panels. The headset and earpiece combos have a safety feature where you will be teleported back to the last registered infirmary you visited the split second before you die. In this case, it is this small cabin. Your headset would have already registered it. Also, after you are teleported, you are frozen in a gelatin mold that will pause all bodily functions. This is to make sure you get the help you need, as your body is probably messed up. Anyways, I’m off. There’s a cluster of weapons sitting on a rack next to the main gate, just shy from where the battle is happening. I suggest you take the crossbow, as I don’t believe you can fight hand to hand very well. I’m off. Defend yourself.”

Devan gave a small salute, before bolting out the front door. Zen touched his earpiece, and walked out of the cabin himself. During their conversation, most of the guards had already gone to the frontlines, and many more were already on the parapets firing volley after volley of arrows.

Zen made his way to the main gate weapon racks and picked up a handful of weapons. A long sword, a long spear-like weapon, a bow with a middle stick like handle. He grabbed them all, attached them to his belt, and began to climb up a ladder to the parapets. Once he got up, a scene of grit and horror met his eyes.

Possibly up to forty to fifty people were battling it out, where at least ten large arachnids took the fields. They were a dirty brown, with red stripes lining each one of their eight thick and hairy legs. Each one had a maroon colored x mark on the top of their head and thorax, which Zen assumed would be where their weak spot would be, but it appeared not, as most of the fighters were attempting to strike its underbelly every time the thing lunged.

Zen watched a particular battle with a crosserfang spider, as several soldiers tried to flank it, and one guard, obviously beefier than the others, acted as a tank. He was equipped with a massive shield, most likely to block the massive fangs that were attempting to strike at his flesh. As the spider lunged, its back would rise slightly, and the rest of the guards would attempt to jump at the occasion and strike its underbelly. Most times, the spider would drop its behind fast enough so the soldiers couldn’t get a good hit on. But occasionally, a flank soldier would be able to land one strike, in which the spider would spin around, and attempt to attack the flank. But every time, the tank and flank would switch sides and repeat the process.

“Hey, are you gonna help us shoot or are you gonna keep daydreaming?” an archer said into Zen’s ear, shaking him out from his observations. “I see you’re holding a crossbow, so go ahead and use it!”

Zen held up the crossbow by the handle, and picked up an arrow from the quiver he brought up. He… he… didn’t know how to use it. Maybe putting the arrow in the slot was right? But how’d he shoot it? He saw the other soldiers use bows without a middle stock handle, but this was very clearly much different and way too complex. How did it–

“Alright newbie, let me show you,” the archer said, yanking the crossbow out of Zen’s hands. “First, put the arrow in the slot. Then pull the string back using the handle on the back of the string. Lock it into place where the pin is in the back. If the crossbow bolt and the string doesn’t move while they’re locked in place, that means it’s locked and ready to fire. Then, aim the crossbow at whatever you need to hit and fire by clicking the trigger. Rinse, repeat. Got it?”

The archer shoved the crossbow back into Zen’s hands, before he took up his own much simpler bow and began shooting the spiders from afar. Following the orders of his archer superior, Zen locked the arrow into place and looked down the sight of the bow, looking for a target that was remotely close to his location.

Suddenly, he heard a chorus of shouting, as a differently built crosserfang was seen barreling towards the wooden walls, the same walls Zen was currently standing on. It looked like a normal crosserfang, but it had big orange sacs on its back and underbelly, full of sloshing jelly-like liquid. The spider was extremely agile, dodging and weaving all of the ground soldiers' attempts to hit the spider, noticeably the sacs on top.

Zen swiftly aimed at the oncoming spider, before thumbing the trigger, letting the bolt fly with a chunk! Sound. The bolt landed true, hitting the sacs, causing the entire spider to burst into a fiery explosion, burning the spider in a crispy inferno. The fire rose so high, the heat lashed at his face, instinctively forcing him back.

Thankfully, not a drop of the liquid fire had reached the walls, and as Zen looked down from above, many soldiers were giving him a thumbs up before continuing to battle other spiders. Zen smiled himself, before locking another bolt into his crossbow and firing it at another spider. The bolt hit the normal crosserfang in the head, but even though it was lodged in it’s head, it didn’t seem phased by it. These spiders must have one heck of a defense to not feel the pain from an iron tipped bolt.

Out of nowhere, Zen heard a sharp and painful cry, a very familiar cry. Zen wheeled around to the right, where he had completely missed the other side of the battle. A crosserfang was towering over Stephen, his flank team having been knocked aside and with Stephen’s leg bleeding severely.

An inner anger boiled inside as he saw one of his possibly first humans to meet about to get savaged by a monster spider. He glanced toward his archer superior, who barely looked phased at all, as he kept firing on other enemies. This infuriated Zen even more, as he put down his crossbow and pulled out an iron sword from his belt.

Then he vaulted the wall.