Short summary of the last chapter:

Spoiler :

Voice killed the queen worm’s body guards, and managed to defeat the slime boss. He also received a new class.

Also, let me know if anything is wrong with the chapter! Be sure to comment!

IMPORTANT

A lot of readers have asked about why Voice’s HP is set to 100. I have replied in the comments to most of them, but decided to provide a description of the stats here. Think of it as Voice trying out his Adept level Long Distance Inspection. I am only going to list the stats he currently has. Any other possible stat will remain unknown to him.

Voice’s POV:

I decided to check out the description for all of my stats. I wanted to see exactly what they did, in hopes of leveling them up faster. If you know what the job requirements are, it is much easier to get a promotion.

Strength is the estimated level of pure physical power. Higher strength allows for stronger attacks, and increases the character’s muscle size. Gaining 50 points in strength generates a muscle based skill.

Wisdom is the estimated amount of knowledge regarding life and living. Higher wisdom allows for faster mana regen, and increases the character’s common sense. Gaining 50 points in wisdom generates a skill that effects other skills.

Endurance is the estimated level of resistance your body has to extreme labor. Higher endurance allows for faster stamina regen, and increases the amount of pain a character can take. Gaining 50 points in endurance generates a skill that effects the maximum pain threshold the character can take.

Intelligence is the estimated amount of knowledge regarding scientific and natural studies. Higher intelligence allows for a larger mana pool, and increases the character’s speed of thinking. Gaining 50 points in intelligence generates a skill that effects mana.

Agility is the estimated ability to dodge and move. Higher agility allows for a wider range of possible movements, and increases the character’s physical speed. Gaining 50 points in agility generates a skill that allows the user to dodge attacks more adeptly.

Dexterity is the estimated ability to accurately hit a target, or make precise movements. Higher dexterity allows for a wider range of precise movements, and increases the character’s accuracy. Gaining 50 points in dexterity generates a skill that allows the user to land more critical hits.

Luck is the estimated amount of times (out of 1000) something good will randomly occur. Higher luck increases the player’s chance of obtaining rare items or quests. Gaining 100 points in luck generates a non-upgradable random skill. Players cannot put points into luck. Luck levels up naturally when lucky things happen.

Vitality is the estimated amount of vigor one has. Higher vitality increases the amount of physical tasks a player can do. Gaining 50 points in vitality generates a skill that increases the amount of physicals tasks a player can do.

Charisma is the estimated total of the player’s ability to sweet talk others. Higher charisma increases the player’s believability from others. Gaining 100 points in charisma generates a non-upgradable skill that directly effects attitudes of others. Players cannot put points into charisma. Charisma levels up naturally when the player shows a more charismatic side.

Compassion is the estimation of the player’s innate empathy. Higher compassion increases the player’s ability to relate to others. Gaining 100 points in compassion generates a non-upgradable skill that directly effects the player’s ability to feel empathy for others. Players cannot put points into compassion. Compassion levels up naturally when the player shows compassion to more individuals.

Leadership is the estimation of the player’s ability to command. Higher leadership increases the speed NPCs obey the player’s orders, as well as the complexity of the order the player can give. Gaining 100 points in leadership generates a non-upgradable skill that directly effects the player’s ability to command. Players cannot put points into leadership. Leadership levels up naturally when the player shows capability to lead.

Logic is the estimated total of the player’s ability to think rationally. Higher logic increases the ease with which the player understands situations. Gaining 100 points in logic generates a non-upgradable skill that directly effects the player’s ability to analyze situations. Players cannot put points into logic. Logic levels up naturally when the player comes to a difficult conclusion to grasp.

Piety is the total amount of faith the player has shown to a single god or goddess. Higher Piety increases the amount of closeness the player is to the gods. Gaining 100 points in piety generates a non-upgradable skill that directly shows the player’s devotion to a particular god or goddess. Players cannot put points into piety. Piety levels up naturally when the player preforms what a certain god or goddess would condone. Piety only levels up for one god or goddess at a time. If the worship of a second god or goddess takes place, piety will only increase after the initial value has been met a second time.

The situation i found myself in was not the best. Despite the high level I was, I still had only 100 hp. Before the update (ch. 30) I gained 10 hp per level. After that, it went to zero. Since the game determines hp retrogressively, I lost all of my hp boost. If I had a different class I could have had at least 450 hp. Not that 450 was a lot.

I needed to figure out a way to defend myself. If I met SD or any other high level player, I would probably die in a single hit. I could stop any mage from attacking me, but I had never actually met another mage player. At least I hadn’t seen anyone else using magic. My Complete Immunity trait would help, but I didn’t exactly know how it worked.

Then again, I hadn’t really been around anyone but EDI. I had a few ideas to block attacks, but I wanted to test them before a real battle. One idea was to make a hardened wind barrier, maybe I could re-enforce it with metal mana.

While I was contemplating how I would try to get around my super low hp, I looked at Heather. She was a slightly greyish-green color around the edges. I hoped she would last until I could think of some way to cure her.

“Alright, let’s go up the ladder.” I pointed to the only real source of light. Light streamed down from a small square in the ceiling, at the edge of the room. A thin, possible wooden, object ran up the length of the wall.

Heather’s POV:

On the first day I met Voice, I felt compelled to keep a record of my thoughts on this new man. He fed my family, so I guess it’s not too bad.

He sat in the center of the field for a long time, with food sitting near him. Troy, one of my braver brothers, decided to try to get some.

The man didn’t even move after Troy stole some. Slowly more of my brethren began to take food from the stranger.

After grabbing some food for myself, I decided to lay on the man’s lap. Proper compensation needed to be paid for the food. What better way to pay then to allow him to pet me?

The man woke up after I made a slight movement. Troy was getting another piece of food, but froze. The man seemed to look at something, and put his finger in the air.

A blue light overcame my vision. I felt a something on my neck. It was a collar. Suddenly I knew the man’s name was Voice0fReason. The man looked over me, Rabs, and Troy. He took note of my beautiful brown fur, and black eye fur.

In unison Troy, Rabs, and I said, “Hello Master!” He asked our speed, so we told him. We raced a bit, but Voice couldn’t keep up. I was wondering why I would let myself be captured by such a slow person.

I went as fast as I could, as did my two brothers. Voice was no competition for us. After running a bit he called us to a halt. Him and the woman talked for a while.

He decided to go into town. I didn’t want to go into town, but was forced to. The only thing that made me stomach him was the fact that he helped my family.

Over the course of the next few days we started hunting wolves. I tasted a bit of the meat, and was instantly addicted.

I made it a priority to get as much taste as possible out of each wolf. The wolf meat had an unbelievably good taste.

I quickly became addicted to the flavor. When Voice made us vegetable stew, I begged him for meat in mine.

My brothers thought I was crazy, but it tasted SO GOOD!

Voice was nice. He let me eat the wolf meat whenever I wanted to. I couldn’t do a lot of damage to the wolves at first, but Voice was patient. I was starting to hate him slightly less.

One day we went to this weird place. Voice made us fight this weird squid monster thing. I didn’t like it. I didn’t like Voice.

Once I got a taste of its blood though. Oh man it was good. I wanted more. It tasted like the most high quality carrots I’ve ever had.

We eventually beat the thing, but Voice basically used us as disposable pawns to do it. Luckily none of us died. We continued to hunt wolves when we got back to his burrow.

Hunting wolves was fun. Troy was ok with Voice, but I think that was because he was a bit of a masochist.

Rabs hated Voice even more than I did. Voice made Rabs train constantly. He also made Rabs do the dangerous work of gathering the wolves.

When Voice became a monster tamer Rabs and Troy decided to leave him. I still wanted more wolf meat, but knew my kin would frown on it. I had started to wonder if it was actually the blood I preferred.

Voice accepted me, of course. The only reason I even offered was all of the wolf blood. I was defiantly addicted to wolf blood.

Voice tamed a monster bear, but the bear wasn’t as good as I was. He was able to reach higher places, but he was lazy.

I killed many more wolves than he did. I also ate just as much. The only thing good about that bear is how much it ate.

I grew really large while eating all of the wolves. It was worrisome at first, but I decided it was good. After all, I could easily kill the wolves now.

Voice eventually gave up Boris the bear to be a mage. I made the mistake of trying to play with Boris, but it ended up in a small fight. The fact that Voice was so wishy-washy definitely didn’t help his case with me.

We left town a little while after that. I mostly hunted wolves with EDI. I liked EDI. She petted me, and made me happy. She also let me eat all of the wolf meat I could.

After we left town we wandered for a while. We were attacked by bandits, but Voice saved EDI and me. He had given me all of his items, so I figured it was just to make sure the bandits didn’t get it.

Still, he did save us. EDI and I killed some of the stragglers, and I drank some human blood. Human blood was almost as good as tall quid thing blood.

I somehow evolved into a blood-bunny. It meant I could suck blood from my enemies to gain power. I decided to stay with Voice for now. I wanted to see how things would go in the future. I became small, as in tiny. My size before the evolution was about the size of a large wolf, afterwards I could fit in Voice’s outstretched paw.

We followed the trail to where the bandits took Voice, but he was free when we got there. He tasked EDI and me with hunting more wolves. He also helped, but not for long. Some villagers also started helping.

The bad thing was I didn’t get to eat all of the wolves. Still I had already caused one group to go extinct for a while, it would be rude to make the river-city not taste wolf blood for a long time.

We helped out the town for a while, but it was boring. Eventually we left, but he took some girl with him. She was useless.

He tried to train her to fight, but I was only to benefit himself. For some reason he seemed to enjoy it when she was in pain. I guess it made sense that he was a masochist.

I was excited when we made it to a new dungeon, but that didn’t last long. We were fighting giant worms. Their blood tasted horrible. The taste slowly got worse and worse.

Eventually I couldn’t even stomach it. It ended after we killed the slime. Although I kept sucking it in, it kept getting out.

I seemed to have caught something bad from it though. I’m sure Voice would find a cure though. After all, he wouldn’t let me die while I made him so much money.

POV None:

DI had been advancing technology dramatically in the last few months. Of course, they didn’t let on any of their inventions. Until the release of DIVE that is. After DIVE was released, DI started showing some of the tech they had been making to the world.

The first was an industrial level battery. It was the size of a watch battery, but had enough power to run a small car. They had somehow created a new type of chemical process to make batteries. The shelf life of the batteries was amazing. Basically if you didn’t use it, it had a way to micro charge itself.

Of course DI made cases for the batteries. The small batteries could be put into these cases and would act as the battery type the case was designed as. They essentially made a single battery that worked as AA, AAA, D and so on.

This release was coupled with a new battery charger. The charger could convert any amount of output a house socket could provide, and charged the batteries accordingly.

The second release was the translation software. DI created a small Bluetooth headset, which incorporated the DIVE pod’s ability to translate. A small portion of the V.I. that maintained DIVE was installed into each headset.

The headsets had two features that were not mentioned in marketing. One was a safety feature. The feature was very similar to the DIVE pods. If someone tried to take the headset apart, the headset would send a small shock to wipe the system.

The electrical components only took up space the size of a pinky nail. The rest was for the new batteries, and to increase stress before the headset broke. If the headset was broken DI would replace it at their discretion.

The second feature was unknown to anyone but Kelsey, and the V.I. programming. The V.I. actually monitored all devices at once. Any data the headset picked up, was directly sent to a massive storage device DI housed.

They technically could do this, since the contract said ‘An undisclosed number of seconds from each DIT (Direct Interactive’s Translator) may be recorder for research and support purposes.’

The undisclosed number of seconds was 100%. Now some people believed the government listened to everyone that made phone calls or some such nonsense. That would technically be possible, but only if they had several hundreds of thousands of people all listening to phone calls 24/7.

DI used the V.I. to do the sifting. If any information was picked up that could prove dangerous to the company, Kelsey made sure to let the right people know.

The third thing they released, which was the biggest thing world-wide, was a plant. The plant was a massively modified orange tree. They had modified it to take in several hundreds of times more carbon dioxide than normal. The amount of fruit it bore was also increased to about twelve times as much. Not only that, but it consumed only a quarter of the water.

Not only would these trees help provide food for places that didn’t have much, they could also be planted in cities to help reduce the carbon footprint we created. They sent out shipments of hundreds of these trees each day to areas around the world. At least 60 were delivered to impoverished regions each day.

The only underwhelming thing about the trees, was that they were fairly fragile and were seedless. DI made a statement saying the fragility couldn’t be worked out while maintaining every part of the tree. The also admitted to keeping the only tree of the kind to actually produce seeds.

Since they still had some government protection, no one really tried to steal it from them. At least none that made it to the news.

The final thing they produced since opening DIVE, was robotics limbs. Artificial limbs had been popular for a long time for those that needed them. Some companies even managed to allow for almost perfect control over the new appendages. What DI had done was added a bit more to this.

They had a small chip added to the arm. The chip worked by enhancing what most artificial limbs did. Most artificial limbs were attached to the actual nerve endings to allow for near perfect movement. DI did that, but the chip sent signals to the brain.

The brain would send a signal for the limb to move, it did, then the brain would receive a signal. The signal it received was because of the chip, and ‘skin’ on the limb. The skin came in any color, and had just as many pressure pads as the real limb.

Once the pads were touched by any object, the chip sent a signal to the brain. The signal essentially recreated the ‘touch’ felt by the new limb. This was a revolutionary design.

It could not help people paralyzed from the spine down, but just about anything else was doable. DI made sure to keep any of its customers happy.

DI did put a lot of places under pressure while making these things. In fact, most places would have gone bankrupt if DI had not bought them first. DI would buy the business, and just adjust it to their own needs.

If the business had made games, they now helped with DIVE. If a farmer was about to go out of business from the orange trees, they now grew the special oranges. Everyone who had the job kept it if they wanted. DI never fired anyone without reason.

Even the managers or business owners were allowed to keep their positions once they signed the DI contract. All employees of DI were paid above competitive wages, and received many benefits. The daycare program was especially eye catching.

There were a few federal laws that should have stopped this monstrous growth, but they were quickly changed by the U.S. House. DI was only doing good. If they imposed harsh laws on them, DI might go to another country.

The U.S. wanted as many ownership rights as they could. DI was only too happy to cooperate with the government. They technically didn’t work for them anymore, but giving a few benefits was ok.

As for the reason DI was able to make so many ground shattering discoveries? They utilized the V.I. to its utmost. By creating small virtual worlds using all the information currently held by any public source, DI recreated a basic version of Earth.

There the V.I. created a few immortal NPCs, and had them run simulations on the scenarios DI had asked about. DI had already made the earlier discoveries well before DIVE was even announced, they just kept them hidden. If everyone knew then it would have less of an impact. Showing everything day after day seemed like it would get more attention.

The time compression for DIVE was 5:1. The maximum time compression for NPCs was about 1 year in the sim, equaled about a minute IRL. Simulations showed regular humans couldn’t handle more than a ratio of 10:1 for long periods of time. To be safe DI made it half of that.

The severs for DI were stored in a hyper cooled room. It was a 10x10x10 cubic feet room. There were four rows of servers, with just enough room between the rows to walk. Each row was made up of four servers. The servers each held a little over a yottabyte of data. That’s a trillion terabytes each. That was enough storage to house the entire internet, and that was just on part of one server.

Internet consumption had increased from the early 2000’s, but only by about a hundred times. With all of the advancements DI had actually made, they could have easily conquered the world.

The reason they didn’t was simple. It was the same reason they invented DIVE. DIVE was created for the sole purpose of creating a truly artificially intelligent being. If they could create one, then many of the world’s problems would be solved. The A.I. would learn from the massive amount of players, and be able to adapt to new situations.

If the A.I. could fully learn to interact with the people, then DI would showcase it in a few years. The A.I. would grow inside several environments at once. That would allow for a large amount of information to be gathered. Allowing a massive amount of players in the game only sped up the process.

Of course, by solving the problems they would be heralded by humanity. DI wanted to help the world, but Kelsey also wanted power. Not for power’s sake, but to be able to continue researching whatever she wanted.

The ultimate goal of DI was to make independent bio domes. Giant ships that could last in space forever. That was a long way off though. Even if they did that, they needed to be able to communicate between the domes.

Long distance space communication would not happen in real-time. It would take years, if ever, for the messages to reach flying ships. That was another part of the DIVE pod initiative.

The pods worked independently from the internet. The pods didn’t use radio waves, or waves of any sort for communications. The pods worked by basically utilizing a formerly unknown fact about humans.

DI was enhancing the pods ability to allow people to stay in the sleep like state for longer periods. That way long distance space travel would be a possibility.

New pod designs were constantly being drawn, and tested inside of the virtual environment. Many of them showed promise, but none of them passed the excessively large amount of stress testing DI did.

With the money DI made from the game, they bought out other companies and furthered their research on possible intergalactic travel. Although that would probably not happen in the lifetime of anyone living on Earth at that moment.

DI also did a lot of work in hospitals. Primarily giving coma patients a second chance at living. Two coma patients each day received a DIVE pod absolutely free. The guardians of the patient had to sign a waiver, but then the patient was allowed to enter the white room. These white rooms were specially made to communicate with the outside world.

Loved ones might not be able to actually feel the real life vigor, but they could communicate to their loved ones at least.

DI was making an update to allow people to travel between each other’s white rooms as well. It was going to be a free feature. The rules would all be the same, but people would be more capable of seeing long distance friends, or family.

Voice’s POV:

We climbed the ladder, well I had to hold Heather the entire time. The ladder took longer than expected to climb. I had to make flat horizontal earth walls twice so we could rest.

Lily seemed to have the least amount of stamina. We mainly had to stop for her. I would have kept going, but if EDI thought I was a bad person she’d be harder to get into my camp.

After climbing for almost an hour, we finally made it. We were in a small closed off room. The only light was a glowing crystal above our heads.

Lily started to freak out, so I ignored her. I summoned Sol out, to help provide some extra light. I closed my eyes to search for earth mana. The entire room was made of heavy earth mana. I quickly dissolved the stone into my mana pool.

A door high enough to fit a human was created. Outside of the door stood ten dwarves. All wore heavy plated armor, and all had their various weapons pointed at us.

The dwarves were about half the size of a human, but were very broad of shoulder. They were covered in muscle as well as the armor.

What I saw behind the dwarves was awe inspiring. We were inside a giant mountain. About a hundred feet from us, sprawled a giant city. The city seemed to be carved from the inside of the mountain. The buildings extended in every direction.

There were a few small buildings that I could see, but most stretched all the way to the top of the chasm. They looked like apartment complex’s. The biggest building was in the shape of a dome. It seemed to be in the center of a commercial district. It was seemingly made of a metal mesh.

The entrance we came through was in the center of buildings that seemed to form a circle around us. No wonder the dwarves were guarding it, it led straight to the boss room.

The city was lit by two unusual light sources. All along the ceiling a few hundred feet above us, was light crystals. They gave a clam blue glow

As if in contrast to this, there were intermittent pools of a bright red slow moving liquid. It could only be lava. Or was it magma since it hadn’t left the mountain yet?

The glow from the magma was ominous, but at least it aided in seeing. There were holes that exposed the city to the world, but those were very far away.

So directly inside the mountain was a city. The city was huge, at least a 450 square miles. That was as big as New York city, or over half the size of Tokyo. Even in the real world this would have been considered a huge city.

My attention turned back to the tiny guards. They were almost cute. Almost because of the whole drawn weapons thing.

I wanted to see what would happen if I picked one up, but gave up on that idea pretty quickly. They would definitely not like being toyed with like children. In fact, I’d probably need to stay away from words about their height altogether.

I did not know what the little guys were saying. I guess since I couldn’t speak dwarven. I gently elbowed EDI. “Hey, you speak dwarven?” She just shook her head. I cursed. “Shit, I don’t think asking for a translator would be polite.”

“Yur right. T’wount be atall. Not atall.” (You’re right. It wouldn’t be at all. Not at all.)

One of the dwarves, the one I assumed was the leader, had a rough voice. It sounded like he was raised out in the wilderness, or maybe he just found it hard to actually interact with humans. Oh well, at least he spoke human.

Vlad Level 68

Dwarven Hall’s Exit GuardianHealth3450/3450Stamina:1000/1000

I racked my knowledge for what dwarves were like. Usually they hated elves. Strike one. At least I looked human.

They usually loved mining, and smithing. They also were usually big on ancestry and all that. I did fulfill Ysga’s last wish. Maybe that would be a good way in. Also the notice earlier said dwarves wouldn’t despise me anymore. That was nice.

My mind was racing, but only half a second had passed. The dwarf took my silence as respect, and continued. His emotions were, 80% suspicious and 19% curious.

“Well, furst off ya need ta be tellin us how ya got hur. Then ya’ll are gonna have ta be brought ta da council.” (Well, first off you need to tell us how you got here. Then you all will have to be brought to the council.)

I was glad the audio part of my inspection was giving me screens to read what he said. Otherwise I would have been lost. This guy needs to learn to enunciate a bit. After he told us what was about to happen, I decided to speak.

“I was headed for M’Path, but saw this dungeon. I thought to myself, ‘hey I bet there are strong monster’s here.’ So I went to try it out. Imagine my surprise when I had to fight giant worms! It was even worse seeing the worms become immune to anything I did.”

The dwarf was nodding, but the group behind him still had their weapons drawn. The lead dwarf seemed to be contemplating something, so I continued.

“Well of course that just got my blood boiling. I continued to fight, hack and slash, my way through until something odd happened.” Pause for dramatic effect. “The worms started turning into humans!” The dwarves gasped and started talking in hushed tones. The lead dwarf barked an order in dwarven, and the crowd instantly became silent. He nodded to me.

“And how are we to believe that? You could say any number of things to us. It’s been a dozen generations since the last dwarf has set foot into those caverns.”

I smiled and continued my story. “Well Since the worms were constantly upgrading, it only makes sense that they would take a dwarvenoid shape. After all, what shape could best the one Gnome graced dwarfkind with?”

I might not know a lot about dwarves, but in almost any game or story they worshiped the god of earth as their creator. Maybe the god of metal too, since there was one.

“They seemed to try to be imitating dwarves. At first the giant snakes shrunk and grew four limbs, then they became denser and denser. Much like the stocky and powerful dwarves. It makes sense that they would want to be the best to fight though.” I gave a non-committal shrug.

The emotions the lead dwarf displayed were lowering in suspicion rapidly. I loved it when people were easy to figure out.

“Whenever I attacked they would spew worms to attack us, eventually though they began to absorb the worms that came out. When they did they regenerated. They were quickly becoming as difficult to deal with as a dwarf in an underground mine.”

Like this I summarized the entire venture. I made sure to coat the entire thing with flattery. Flattery seemed to work wonders on the dwarves.

They were amazed to hear about the slime, but convinced once I showed them Heather. At first they wanted to kill her, but I convinced them that I had her under control. The asked to see my weapon, so I showed them my staff. I undid the clasps and showed them how it could be two swords or a spear as well.

They grilled EDI next, but she only backed up my story. After being seemingly satisfied with our tale, they led us to a building near the dome. They left a little over half of the group to continue to stand watch over the block of stone. As soon as we came to the first building I got a notice.

You have entered Ysga’s Hall. For being the first player to enter Ysga’s Hall without a flying mount, you gain 10 fame.

The city was bustling with business. Most of it had to do with crafting or metal. Although there was a fair bit of alcohol being sold. The houses were crammed together tightly.

The dwarves were doing business right outside of their homes. Most of the dwarves were armed with swords or falchions, and wore heavy plated armor.

As we passed many dwarves would stop what they were doing to stare at us. It was a little uncomfortable, but I managed to steel myself.

After a few hundred feet of walking, the dwarves seemed to ignore us. The entire city was like a giant market place. There were only a handful of people here that were not dwarves. They were all high level players, that had most likely had flying mounts.

Fuck I wanted a flying mount. I decided to try hunting a griffon or something to capture it. I could always fly with my outfit, but it constantly consumed mana.

It took us half an hour of walking to actually make it to the council. The council building was huge, but it was dwarfed by the metal caged dome beside it.

Of course I still acted amazed by the workmanship of the council room. It was splendid in its own right though. It was lavishly decorated, silk and gold adorned nearly everything in the building.

The building had five floors. The first floor seemed to be a reception area. The guards took us past the desk, and into a stairwell. The stairwell was behind a door.

The stairs were intermittently lit with the blue glowing crystals. We went up the entire flight of stairs. I was completely out of stamina by the time we arrived, but I made sure not to let it show.

We eventually came to the top floor.

Vlad spoke before opening the door. “When you get in here let the council talk first. Do not speak unless they ask you a direct question. Do not speak except to answer the question.” I nodded. The council seemed to be pretty high up on the leadership ladder. This would be the first time I met someone with actual political power.

I decided to get an in with them, and establish a power base for myself. The door opened and I entered a large coliseum like room. All around were hundreds of dwarves. The dwarves sat on seats positioned around the coliseum. It seemed as if I was a gladiator, and the dwarves were the spectators. EDI, Heather, and Lily did not follow me in.

The entire assembly was yelling and arguing. It seemed to be some sort of debate going on. The verbal battle seemed to go on forever. The sound all stopped abruptly at one point.

One dwarf began to speak. After a second another dwarf began to translate for the humans. The second dwarf seemed downright eloquent.

“Welcome to Ysga’s Hall! You have been invited to the council room for one reason. Our shaman has told us you have defeated the evil being that corrupted the worm queen? Is that true?”

I said Yes.

“Good, we know not how the beast defeated her, but now we will be free of it influence. We used to have young dwarves test themselves in the tunnels, but one day that all changed. A dark influence took over the entire area.

We sent battalions of warriors to kill it, but none returned. We are grateful to you, the one who destroyed it.

You have allowed our race to once more venture out into the world of the other races. As thanks you may choose one item from our vault and it will be yours.”

The dwarven assembly began to clap. Vlad escorted me out of the room. That was it? I didn’t even get a chance to butter up the council. *Sigh* I guess I still got something from the vault.

Vlad began speaking to me. “Well, looks like ya got a nice ruward thar. Wish I had a chance ta grab muh somin in da vult.” (Well, it looks like you got a nice reward there. Wish I had a chance to grab myself something from the vault.)

I merely smiled and nodded. I explained what had happened to EDI and Heather. It was confusing, but at least I had gained an item of some sort.

The vault was in the basement floor of council building. My group walked in. Vlad told us to pick the item as a group, but I’d convince the girls to let me choose it.

There were many gold coins and gems, but none of them were in bags. Since we could only take one item I figured it should be something enchanted or at least something worth several gold coins.

I thought that, but the truth was I didn’t even have a single gold coin worth of silver at that moment. I had 20 silver and 5 copper. A gold coin was over quadruple what I currently had.

During the search I sent a few looks towards EDI. She seemed to be struggling with something. I had given Ancestor Inspect back, so I wasn’t sure what. She was intently looking over each item, but her mind was definitely elsewhere.

Nothing really caught my interest, but I did see a bundle of ten books wrapped together. I assumed that counted as a single item.

“Hey EDI, what do you think about getting these books. Some of the titles seem to be about the history of the dwarves.” EDI seemed to be thinking it over.

“I have a compendium that could absorb the books. If you let me have them I promise to pay you back in some way.” Not in money though.

EDI started to slowly nod her head. “Sure, I guess that would be alright. Actually this came at a good time. My moms said I had to log out for a while. You can think of this as a going away present.” I feigned a very sad look. Well it might have been a little bit real.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were going to leave?” She shrugged.

“I just found out a little bit ago. I’ll be seeing you though.” She logged out without a second thought. I picked the books up and left the room. I had to think about what I would do without the main melee damage dealer in our group.

I had never actually expected EDI to go directly against my wishes. No one had done that in a very long time. She never did listen though.

After a few minutes of thinking, I made a plan. I would rent a place in the city, and help out around town. I would have to try to get into the council if I could. If I played my cards right I might even end up owning a dwarven city.

I started thinking again about EDI. Why would she just leave all of the sudden. I guess I didn’t mean much to her after all. I’d just have to show her how powerful I was. Maybe then she’d be more inclined to be around me.

I decided my time limit would be until I got a light fairy, and fully purified my earth mana.

Spoiler :

Spoiler :

Stats WindowNameVoice0fReasonClassMana EnchanterLevel 35Health: 100Mana: 1680Stamina: 350Current Title: SurgeonHealth Regen: 1/sMana Regen: 20.4(15.4)/sStamina Regen: 5.1/sStrength41Agility34Wisdom204Intelligence168Endurance51Dexterity44Luck0Vitality35Charisma35Compassion95Leadership66Logic22Piety89Unused Stat Points0Fame860

Skills WindowAutomated Novice Level 9 Exp 25.00%

Speed Reading Novice Level 9 Exp 00.00%

Auto Read Novice Level 20 Exp 50.00%Group Skill: Key to Self-Sustained Alchemy Novice Level 24 Exp 10.46%

Group Skill: Long Distance Inspection Adept Level 50 Exp 00.00%

Group Skill: Automatic Nursing Novice Level 12 Exp 50.00%

Group Skill: Con Artist Novice Level 17 Exp 90.16%

Group Skill: Magical Mastery Apprentice Level 37 Exp 00.00%

Group Skill: Skill Mastery Adept Level 50 Exp 21.23%

Group Skill: Tactical Survival Adept Level 50 Exp 00.00%

Group Skill: Tactical Combat Training Adept Level 50 Exp 00.00%

Group Skill: Breakdown Novice Level 12 Exp 46.64%

Group Skill: Harvesting Mastery Novice Level 3 Exp 11.11%

Group Skill: Crafting Mastery Novice Level 4 Exp 60%

Affinities WindowLight70%Water60%Wind25%Nature55%Metal25%Earth45%Fire25%Darkness100%