Honestly, I thought this chapter was going to be longer than it is, but I didn't want to give away too much information too quickly, so it ended up much shorter than I thought. I hope there aren't too many errors, as I am kinda posting it pretty much right after finishing writing. I hope you enjoy the trivia involved. There are parts with lots of repetition, but I hope that repetition will make sense in the end. Enjoy.

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Trinity Online was an advanced VRMMORPG that used advanced Space/Time communications devices in order to generate an almost lagless connection directly to the main server. The Units used on the player side were special pods that in the years since it's inception had not been successfully tampered with, not even once. Trinity's systems monitored brainwaves, nd used that as input, but it wasn't well-known how it was done. All that was known was that the devices were able to cut off the impulses to the various parts of the body to a large degree without endangering the customer, and "transported" the customer's consciousness into the game.

Some had theorized that it used an enduced hypnotic state to allow the system to put the player into a waking dream, thus allowing them to experience the world, but this had never been proven, and Supercal continually maintained it's silence about their proprietary technology. Neither comfirming, nor denying the hypothesis, this was Supercal's stance, a stance that terribly frustrated those who wished to know their secret. Andaros supposed there was more to it after he heard this explanation, but kept the thought to himself. There was no reason to believe it was, or wasn't as the experts thought, but there was the possibility it was as they said. He had no idea that his line of thought was completely correct, and the pods worked in a very different manner from what the experts believed.

Trinity actually worked by isolating the player from reality, and interrupting the brainwaves at the source. This did not mean that it would kill players, as the pods allowed minor amounts of neural signals to continue down the spinal cord, and completely allowed signals to all the vital systems. Furthermore, a small amount of standard neural signals came through to the extremities, but these were weak enough that the body had muscle twitches. These twitches could range from mild, to severe, and were allowed in order to keep the players from becoming weak while in the pods, and the twitches often ended up strengthening the players, so there were few complaints. The pods had automatically tightening straps to hold down the players for just this reason, otherwise there was no telling if the customer might flail around and harm themselves while they were playing. The straps hadn't failed, or tightened down too tightly since their design was very carefully done.

Trinity's track record on safety was extremely good, as the company took the safety and continued well-being of their constituents quite seriously. It was said that Supercal designed their pods to last tens of thousands of years without any issues. In the 2,000 plus years the game had been active, the company had never faced a case where a player had been harmed while playing the game. In fact, there were cases where the players had awoken to find hostile forces outside the pod unable to enter and harm them, such cases ended in the players using the internal communications to call for help, or occasionally ended in the criminals inside being arrested, sometimes alongside their attackers.

In a certain light, Supercal's perfect track record in regards to customer safety could be considered suspicious. However, it was known that the company's two founders were safety freaks so nobody thought too much of it.

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Trinity Online's original creator insisted on adhering to ultra realism in his master work. The only exception to this rule was the various interfaces and their assorted menus, everything else was quite realistic. Each world had it's own physics, and it's own common sense, but everything truly looked, and felt, very real. The planetary physics all had a standard basis, but each world's physics were influenced by the various abilities that were meant to be available there. The base was the same, but things like Magic, or Psionics could change the world's environment, and influence the physics and standards within the world. Many worlds had a mix of different standards, but a predominant setup within them. Some worlds had a very specific set of rules, or met the standards of Old Earth in it's prime.

Civilization levels varied on the planets of Trinity Online. Some worlds had super advanced levels of civilization that involved extreme levels of technology. Some worlds were in the dark ages or earlier and magic was prevalent. Still other worlds were based on psionics being the mainstay of society. There were worlds where things like super robots and mecha were commonly used war potential, while yet other worlds were based on nano-robotics instead. There were worlds where magic, technology, or psionics were mixed with one or both of the other types with one being the primary type, and the others being less common. Martial Arts were a theme common to all worlds, but cultivation was not heard of for most worlds.

There were two worlds unlike the others, one that was like old earth in the 20th to 21st century, with only middle stage technology without psionics or magic, nor any kind of high technology. This world was different in that it commonly had one-way wormholes opening from it to one of the other worlds of Trinity Online. The other unusual world was Farside.

Now, Farside was a rather unique style of world within Trinity, it was the only world where cultivation was the primary form of gaining power. It was also the only world where every single form of power was present in some form. In fact, Farside was quite unique in that Martial Arts was considered an advanced form of power.

The world of Farside was a martial arts, magic, and psionics "cultivation world" with a background of high technology based on magic, martial arts, or psionic cultivation. In the past, the world was split between three factions which were each based on one of these three principles. Unfortunately, a great war decimated the planet, wiping out that golden age of civilization. Despite it's setting, Farside was not all that popular due to the difficulty of playing in the world, and it's current crude culture. The basic tutorial had been completed there many times despite these factors, but the special tutorial had not been comepleted even once due to it's high degree of difficulty. Those who could even attempt this tutorial were only players who bought the super expensive "special" pods. Of these, the pod Andaros would be receiving, the platinum pod, was the most expensive kind, and cost enough to purchase a small habitable planet for yourself.

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Trinity had four basic stats, These were Body, Mind, Soul, and Luck/Blessing. Body governed Strength, Stamina, Endurance, Dexterity, Speed, and resistance to the elements, in general all health related stats. Mind was comprised of Intelligence, Wisdom, Magic, general Memory, resistance to the elements, and resistance to standard magic. Soul governed Psionics, resistances to the elements, resistance versus control effects, and resistances to psionic attacks. The Luck/Blessing stats were a bit unique, and which one you got depended on the world you started on. Both stats were equal in their general effect, but each had a specific bonus only that stat provided.

Farside was an exception to the general rule of having luck or blessing in this case, as was the only world identical to 20th-21st century earth, these two planets incorporated the stats as a single stat, including both special bonuses into one stat, called lucky blessing ironically. This stat, and the ease of starting there made the earth-like planet quite a popular place to start, and then transfer from the planet via wormhole.

The "Lucky Blessing" skill excompassed a great many things, including item drop rates, chance for items to be better than common, critical hits, chances to completely resist attacks/spells/psionics, and various other bonuses. The Luck component of the stat increased chances to win at gambling, and addtional bonuses to critical rates, while the Blessing component gave bonuses to the damage, critical rate, and costs of holy spells or certain psionic abilities. This was a stat that was quite enigmatic, but did give a visible difference with enough points. The only issue with this stat could only go from 0-100, and was randomly generated on character creation.

Despite what one might think, having a high or low luck stat did not play a large role in the occurence of lucky or unlucky events. In fact, the stats only affected the chance by 10% at most. This meant, for every 5 points away from 50 points 1% would be added the natural chance of a fortuitous or disasterous event occuring, depending on if the stat was above or below that of course. In general, the mean was a luck score of 45-55, which were common to find, while the chances of encountering a 0 or a 100 luck score were exponentially difficult to hear about, let alone witness.

These were the basic stats of Trinity, and what they affected.

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Classes in Trinity Online were a bit different from classic MMORPG classes. Classes within Trinity were non-existent in their normal form, and were instead handled as class titles which modified stats gained during level ups, and some even modified what weapons and armors could be equipped in exchange for certain bonuses. One example of this is the wizard class title, which made it so players could only equip cloth armor types and robes in exchange for a large bonus to magic damage. All players started with the classless class title, and could then earn a class title in order to gain various bonuses to stats during level up, and other bonuses.

Four class titles could be earned, three combat classes and a single crafting or general classification class. General classification classes could be used in the combat class slots, but comback classes could not be used in the crafting/general classification class title slot. A class title slot could only be set once, and could only be upgraded for an advanced class title of that type later on. This caused the players to be required to carefully consider their class title changes. Initially, this caused a lot of criticism toward the game, but it was soon accepted, and the complaints were forgotten. The game was just so addictive that in the end this complication didn't matter enough to bother with, especially when most abilities were not tied down to a specific class title.

Incidentally, the classless class title could continue to be used if layers so desired. In exchange for a base stat/level modifier, the player could use any armors, weapons, and abilities that did not require a specific class title, but even if they had another class title that could equip the class title armor they would be unable to equip class title specific armors, or learn class title specific abilities or spells, no matter how much they tried.

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Trinity Online was comprised of over 100,000 habitable worlds, of which only around 5,000 could be chosen as starter planets. They came in many different sizes, but all of them shared a basic shape of being somewhat spherical. There were instances of oval planets in the game, but these were rare, as they were generally formed by two planets colliding, where the two cores unexpectedly did not merge. Not a single square or flat plain world could be found among the game worlds, as they operated on the basic laws of gravity found commonly known in the real universe. Most worlds in the game were earth sized planets, but this still only comprised around 60% of planets, and the rest had varying sizes and gravities.

As stated before, Martal Arts, Magic and Psionics, Technology, Science and Civilization levels varied from planet to planet. Civilization levels had a tendency toward belonging to the dark ages or later, but there were still quite a lot at stages before this. Players first chose whether they wanted to pick a planet, or randomize. If the player chose to pick a planet, they were given a generous amount of information about that planet's civilization level, social standards, what power types were available, and technologies available on planet, as well as a myriad of other information.

It was well known that the majority of planets in Trinity Online worships the Trinity Goddesses, Elga, Luna, and Rino. It was said that these three goddesses had created all of the worlds of Trinity save one, but they were not jealous goddesses, and allowed others to worship whom they pleased. Still, those who did worship them gained their protection in the form of blessings, while those who did not would, of course, not gain their blessings. Around 86% of all planets worshipped the goddesses as their main deities, and gained their protection, while the other 14% were either agnostic, or worshiped other beings besides the three.

Trinity online held a multitude of available playable races. Among these races were the typical fantasy races such as Elves, Dwarves, Gnomes, Faeries, and all their variations. There were also the atypical Angaellis, Daemonis, Horlen, Graeven, and a large number of other races. These atypical races were generally not set as a starter race except on certain planets.

As with any rule, there were some exceptions to the rule of certain races only being available on certain planets. Trinity had a system that would allow for players to randomly roll for a race not usually available as a starter race on a certain planet, or even not available on that planet at all under normal circumstances. These races didn't always show up, as even their availability was randomized, but people often hoped to come across one of these races during character creation.

Unfortunately, a player only had one chance at creating a character during their lifetime, and they could not redo the racial roll. No matter if they were to change their retinal pattern, or alter their DNA, this was still a fact. No one knew the exact way that Trinity's systems identified a user, but in all the years the game had been active not a single individual had been capable of tricking the system. Many tried to do so, but all were defeated. In fact, Trinity held an annual contest to see if anyone could trick the system, but not once had anyone ever won the prize. The president of the company often boasted, "kek, kek, kek! You can't change that part of you! keh, keh, keh," while laughing like some kind of third rate villian. No one seemed to have figured out what that part was, though Andaros had an idea what it may be.

Andaros was a believer of an Old Earth religion, Christianity. Now, one might wonder how he could believe in an old religion when humanity of Old Earth had a tendency toward agnosticism in the latter part of the 20th century, but science truthfully doesn't need to be separated from religion, so the religion survived. It's biggest teaching being God's love, the religion had survived the transition to space, along with a few of the biggest religions of Earth. They weren't huge in the greater galaxy, but they had survived.

Chrisitianity, with it's focus being on love, was one of the more popular Old Earth religions among the other races, so it wasn't uncommon for someone such as Andaros to believe. His belief was part of the reason for his troubled heart, while the other was the rules ingrained into him from his homeworld. One of the things that troubled him greatly was his belief that one man should be with one woman, a troubling thing indeed in his current situation.

Anyway. . . Andaros thought the most likely suspect for the thing one couldn't change about themselves was the soul, an important aspect of most Old Earth religions that had survived. This was a concept that had not been officially proven, even in the greater galaxy, but Andaros often felt the existence of such. There are many phenomena that still could not be explained using the basic laws of nature, and the soul is one of these. Nobody knows how, or when a soul is formed, but Andaros personally thought it was formed before the body had even come to be. Whether this was true, he could not prove, but this was his belief.

The soul is a mysterious thing, but what if Supercal had found a way to locate and identify this engimatic thing. If they were able to do so, with the present technology it would not be possible to modify, or change that one aspect of a person. If they held the only technology that could identify a soul, they would easily be able to limit the number of accounts and characters a player could have to only one. By doing so, they could keep the players from redoing their character rolls and gaining the more rare races by "cheating" the system. How they determined the sex was most likely by scanning for chromosomes, but it was possible the soul also determined this, so he wasn't certain on how they determined it.

The characters of the players in Trinity matched their actual sex, even those who had sex changes were properly identified by their original sex by the game. As far as was known, this had not failed in the entire history of the game. There were very few races that were not male or female, but were either asexual or hermaphrodite in the galaxy. Since there were only a few such sentient races in Trinity Online and their available planets were limited, they could choose to be any race available on the planet of their choosing and also choose the sex if they so wished. This could be quite disorienting, so warnings were given, both for the planet not having such races, and for the race itself. These warnings indicated the various symptoms the player might experience both inside, and outside, the game. Most players of these races kept to a similar race, but some adventurous individuals would occassionally choose to do otherwise while braving the side effects.

Trinity had an innumerable amount of subscribers from among the many worlds of the greater galaxy, and was well received by all players. Supercal had it's own private military in order to protect the main server, but they hardly needed it. The players' fanaticism was to the degree that none of the major powers of the galaxy would dare attack them. A great deal of military men and women played the game, and they didn't even want to bother with Supercal, lest the majority of their armed forces and citizens turn on them.

Supercal did not personally discriminate against criminals, nor those who were different, though they would not knowingly sell to those currently involved in criminal means. Still, they did not look into the backgrounds of their constituents, so even criminal organizations wouldn't do something so stupid as to attack Supercal.

The prices for playing Trinity were quite reasonable, and could even be called a huge bargain considering the level of realism and safety while playing the game. The game never had lag, or errors while playing, so players never became angry in response to such issues. The service was so steady that players would immediately suspect another group should the service actually be interrupted, which, happily, never happened. As a result, Supercal was an economic giant that was so powerful even Thraxc had a run for his money when it came to the power they could wield. Of course, their power was economically based, where his was personal, but he could bring more power to bear in the end if he wished to bring The Company into the fray. That being said, Thraxc would never do such a thing unless Supercal were to become corrupt and despotic.

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Details concerning the world of Farside:

Star Name: Soljier

Star Type: O

Star size: Approximately five times the diameter of Sol

Star Temperature: Appromixately 45,000 Kelvin

Average Distance from Star: 1,200,140,783 km

Perihelion: 1,143,684,375 km

Aphelion: 1,342,738,942 km

Length of Solar Day: 24 hours

Length of Solar Year: 1,116 days (There are 36 months at exactly 31 days each.)

Equatorial inclination: 35.436 degrees

Planetary Size: Roughly 118,000 kilometers

Planetary Gravity: 1.2 G

Number of continents: 1 Pangaea class, 13 major class, 5 minor class

Islands: 42,000 minor archipelagoes, 1,400 separate

Geographic Details:

The Pangaea class Algaoan Continent is roughly shaped like a square aligned on it's corner according to the planetary axis. Near each of the points is a major continent approximately the size of South or North America, and to each side is a minor continent around the size of Australia. These eight continents are each connected to the Algaoan continent by a landbridge which appears once every 3-4 months for 8-10 days for the major continents and 3-5 days for the all but one of the minor continents. Surrounding each of the land bridges and the minor continents is a barrier field of sharp rocky spires, undersea reefs, and whirlpools which makes invading them through the surrounding seas extremely prohibitive.

Each of the major continents contain a main environment. For example, one of them is comprised almost solely of deserts, a combination of sandy deserts and high deserts is found on this continent. Another of the major continents houses a massive tropical rainforest. Among the minor continents, one truly stands out.

This "minor" continent goes by the name of Avelynn and spans approximately 8,000,000 square kilometers. It is also known as The Veiled Isle, and is surrounded by a massive, white curtain wall around it's entire exterior. This wall is exceedingly hard and quite smooth, and the winds around it's outer surface are extremely powerful, which makes invasion by climbing this wall exceedingly difficult. The only known entrance to this continent is through a cave which connects to the landbridge connecting the continent to Algaoa. This small cave can fit two large people abreast, and slopes upward to the interior of the continent. The cave is guarded by an unknown guardian and the land bridge appears for only 1 day every ten years, lending to the continent's reputation of never having been successfully invaded by fell beasts.

The climate of The Veiled Isle, contrary to what one might think, is quite temperate. The continent houses mainly forests and grasslands, and even houses a temperate rainforest. Along the massive 10 km tall outer walls can be found 23 gigantic waterfalls, which feed into as many rivers. These rivers in turn wind for hundreds of thousands of kilometers, and finally feed into a single lake which has an unknown outlet. These rivers are fed by a gigantic glacial formation at the top of the curtain walls.

This glacial formation hangs inward into the continent, and not a single bit has fallen into the continent despite the strange configuration. The glacial formation refracts light into the continent, causing the sunrise and sunset to arrive at a similar time to the Algaoan continent. Experts have stipulated that this glacial formation is actually supported by a massive runic circle which is carved into the top of the curtain walls of this roughly circular continent. This is generally accepted as fact, as otherwise such a gigantic glacial formation should not be able to support itself while overhanging the walls by several kilometers, and naturally would not be so clear.

The manner by which the light was refracted alone should not be possible without some splitting of the various rays, but the light is not split into multiple wave lengths in any degree, supporting the theory behind the glacial formation's source of strength. Such a runic circle is still far too complex for most people to imagine, let alone create, so this remains only a stipulation on the part of the experts who have put forth the theory.

Another supporting aspect of the theory behind the glacial formation lies in the central lake. Inside this lake is a very large, perfectly circular island on which lie the remains of an ancient civilization. This city has never been successfully reached, but evidence of a runic circle surrounding the ruins of that city can be seen from a nearby tall hill.

The Algaoan continent, as stated before, is shaped like a rough square tipped on it's corner, a diamond, if you wish to call it that. The continent is covered by massive forests and great grasslands. Three great mountain ranges exist equidistant to the north, west, and east of the center of the continent, forming four sides of a square. There are also much smaller mountain ranges spread out in various areas, but only these three mountain ranges tower to such heights as a range. The heights of these great mountains reach heights that make Olympus Mons look puny in comparison.

These great mountain ranges do not actually touch at where the corners of the square would be. On what would be the fourth side of what would be the square there is only a single mountain, located in the grasslands far to the south. This jagged peak towers to the height of Olympus Mons, surveying the lands surrounding it, like a lonely king. Most people know of this mountain as Kujãre Tomai, The Lonely Mountain, and it is the subject of many legends.

From Kujãre Tomai flows a single river, winding it's way through the southern part of the Pangaea class super continent. This colossal river spreads out into many, many smaller rivers, supporting countless communities of humans and their allied races.

The great forest within the confines of the three great mountain ranges is considered a holy place, and rumors suggest that the smaller mountain range within is the domain of countless holy spirits. The lands outside the southern plains and this sacred area are the homes of various monsters and races, many of whom are hostile to the human race, and thus their allies as well.

To the west of the super continent of Algaoa lies the continent of Chael and the Desolate Lands, a place of high deserts, mesas, and the Sea of Sand, a massive desert far larger than the most mighty deserts of Earth. The only water sources in this land are found at the tops of the mesas, or flowing down their sides, only to disappear upon striking the hot sands below. This place is one of the most inhospitable environments on the planet for any of the sentient races. Only a small community of hearty warriors is known to make their home in these inhospitable lands, high atop the largest Mesa on the continent. This place is the stuff of legends, and reaching it safely is nigh impossible for the other races of the world.

To the East of Algaoa lies the continent of Rhje and it's dense tropical rainforests. Breaking the dense canopy of trees are both mountains and mesas, though the mesas tend to have their own isolated rainforest environments flourishing on top of them. This continent is home to the highest concentration of unique beasts and animals on the planet. Many ruins of ancient civilizations similar to the incans and aztecs can be found here.

To the North of Algaoa is the Zolne continent. This is the continent that mankind knows the least about, and only one legend of it's dense coniferous forests has survived to give any insight into this continent.

The major continent to the South of the Algaoan super continent is known as Frelsnor. This land of towering mountains and deep rifts, is rife with danger on the surface. The mighty dwarven race makes their home under these mountains. A massive network of underground highways connect the dwarven cities to each other, these are the only somewhat safe method of travel throughout the continent. Even with the security of the dwarves, these massive and winding highways are not easily defended. Thus, weaker monsters are known to make their nests in the less traveled tunnels, or in abandoned dwarven cities.

One example of these monster races is the Kobold race, who have made their homes within several abandoned dwarven cities. The race of dragon/human hybrid look alikes is known to be quite hostile to other races, but thankfully do not leave the few cities they have inhabited in any large numbers.

Another monster race that has made their home within an abandoned dwarven city is the Drabcla race, a race similar to a dwarf/ant centaur. The Drabcla race are fairly gentle among the monster races, and are known to maintain a neutral attitude unless hostility is shown toward them, at which point the hostile being is often swarmed by hundreds or thousands of angry Drabcla. As most monsters are hostile to any but their own, the areas the Drabcla inhabit are fairly safe for the merchants of the sentient races. In fact, the only reason the Drabcla are considered a monster race is that no one has successfully communicated with the race.

Culture on Farside:

Societies on Farside vary greatly, but most are of the kingdoms of humans and their allies are on a midieval level. While most of Farsidian life is on a midieval level, there is technology present, albeit a strange technology based on completely different principles than our own.

These technologies are, for the most part, fairly rare, and are based off of a crystal the allied races call dreufsh. This crystal absorbs, and often houses, a unique energy the scholars of Farside call Velz Dreuf, or spiritual energy if you were to translate it to English. The artificers of the allied races have learned to use the energy stored inside these crystals to produce a variety of effects. The devices take various forms, and are typically expensive, but there are two relative exceptions.

The two most common and inexpensive devices are, surprisingly, toilets and showers. These devices only share some similarities with our modern amenities of the same name, such as the toilet having a ring for you to sit on. They use spirit power to either break down, or condense certain types of matter. Home sized units of these two devices are, as stated above, fairly cheap, but portable versions of the devices are much more expensive. As the materials to make the same reaction are much more expensive, and the frames and parts must be much more durable, the costs of materials alone are astronimically higher, let alone engineering costs. Thus, portable versions of these devices are much more expensive, and not very common even amongst wealthy merchants and adventurers.

The most important spirit crystal device on the planet of Farside is typically the most expensive. Reliant on a fist sized spirit crystal which houses an ancient spirit, these belt-like devices allow the wearer to contract with, and borrow the power of the spirits housed within and apply this power to strengthen Martial and Magic powers. These devices allowed the rise of the Heldunfend and Aldensaige to positions of prominence.

In fact, to the majority of societies related to humankind, the entire economy, mythology, and theology revolve around the two major classes of fighters. The word Heldunfend, which can be roughly translated as Siege Guard, is synonomous with the martial classes. It is an umbrella class, just as the Aldensaige is, but focuses on martial prowess, weapon handling, and armor usage. The word Aldensaige can be translated as wise one, and is synonomous with classes which rely on knowledge and magic. This umbrella class focuses on wisdom, intelligence, and magical power to protect the allied races, individual kingdoms, or even families and clans. There are few classes that do not specifically fall under either class.

One example of such a class is the spirit gunner class, a group of warriors who fight mainly using spirit guns. These weapons convert spirit power into various elemental projectiles. Spirit guns are exceedingly rare ancient technology and the class is thus quite rare. In general, Spirit guns have a set element, though there are a few even rarer guns that have been found which use various "cartridges" to change the element fired. These cartridge devices are called Vorsken, though not many know of these devices, or the spirit guns they're designed to work with. The guns designed around these cartridges fire pure spiritual energy if no cartridge is present. While spirit gunners rely on spiritual damage, they also rely on certain martial techniques to keep their distance from their targets, or protect themselves from excessive harm. Therefore, the class does not really fit precisely within any either the Heldunfend, or Aldensaige umbrella classes.

The main races of Farside include the Human, Elves and Dwarves, or Huma, Regel, and Dûo. These three races are just like the normal concepts of their races in our world. The Huma are well accustomed and equipped to be adaptable, the Regel are long lived and fair, and the Dûo are short, stout, and often have fiery tempers.

Huma can excel in almost any field of study. Their adaptability allows for a wide range of studies, and you can find Huma working a great variety of jobs throughout the allied lands.

The Regel are suited to fencing, bowmanship, and magic. The Regel excel in the use of their rapiers, but are terrible at using any other type of melee weapon. They are quite naturally the best at working with and producing wood products, and a bow produced by a Regel Woodmaster sells for extremely high prices.

The Dûo excel in crafting anything using metal, and quite often produce tinkerers as well. This race of master craftsmen are responsible for the production of the spirit belts, or Schlaef. They are, of course, not the originators of this technology, and have simply learned how to produce facsimilies of the ancient spirit belts. Thus, their products are inferior to the Ancients' belts, but are much more common.

Among the races of Farside, there are several unique or rare types. Two examples of this are the Angaellis and Daemonis. Under normal circumstances, these two races look very much human, but they are capable of projecting energy wings and armor naturally. In rare cases, the Angaellis and Daemonis can also project energy weapons to use against their enemies. In regards to these individuals, they are unable to use any other weapons of that type, this can be limited to that specific type, or a general type such as melee or ranged weapons. The fact that they look like standard humans has saved their race a number of times.

The most common place where Angaellis and Daemonis can be found is on the Veiled Isle. There the two races have congregated to create a nation ruled by a queen. Rather than a typical monarchy, they opted for a Queendom ruled by the decendants of their savior-queen. The queendom resembles a fuedal monarchy, but only female descendants have the right to inherit the throne. Due to various other reasons, the royal family is rather uniquely arranged.

The Angaellis and Daemonis are extremely rare characters for players to gain as their own characters, and are only found when choosing Farside as a starter planet under normal circumstances.

Like any other midieval world, Farside has it's darksides. More specifically, Farside has a great deal of slavery, and in most cases those with power heavily abuse it. Slaves are often treated like some kind of animal, and are often treated quite poorly by their owners. Common examples of their poor treatment are being forced to sit on the floor while their master eats, and made to eat the scraps their master tosses on the floor without being allowed to use their hands, being forced to do heavy labor without any thought for their safety, and being forced to act as a vanguard without proper equipment, cannon fodder if you will.

Being a slave is a truly miserable existence, and no one would want to be one under normal circumstances. The only type of slave that is normally treated fairly well are birthing slaves. These attractive young women are required to mate with their masters once a day at any time they feel like it, even in public. In exchange, they are mostly treated fairly well, and properly taken care of. After all, what male would want to sleep with a dirty, grimy girl under normal circumstances. Only in lower class people will you see them mating with a birthing slave in public, as the royals and nobles tend to consider this behavior uncouth. Abusing birthing slaves is looked down upon by the upper class, and can cause a huge loss of face, which serves to deter their mistreatement, but unfortunately this does not apply to most slaves.

Clans, Nobility, and Royalty of Farside:

The nobility and royalty of Farside are often rather greedy individuals, but are commonly held in check by a simple, yet complex concept, face. These groups care most about their clan's honor, and if they were to mistreat the people below them it would strike a blow at the pride of their clansmen, causing them to alienate the person who would do anything to harm their face. Most often, the offender will be looked down upon, or even abused for harming the clan's image. The repeat offenders may be excommunicated from the clan, and the most horrible offenders may even be put to death in secret in order to protect their clan's image from further abuse.

Clans are the most common grouping of individuals or families in existence on Farside. These groups vary n size, and often wage wars against other clans. The most common form of war amongst the clans are economic fights, or tournaments to show off the power of the participants. Economic turmoils are typically rather peaceful on the outside, but can be quite brutal inactuality. Tournaments most often do not allow for purposeful killing of participants, but are by no means peaceful events, and can often end in participants losing their lives.

Among the clans there is a strict hierarchy based on their power, few are the clans that are economically strong, but physically weak. Weak clans can rarely lift their heads, and are often taken advantage of by those with power. This most often takes the form of heavy taxation of those beneath them, but the need to properly maintain their face usually limits the exploitation to no more than 50% of the proceeds gained by a lesser clan. Rarely can economic activity be hidden from the greater clans except in regions that are far from their sphere of influence, or disputed by another clan on par with them.

Regular clans are limited in the military forces they are allowed to hold. This limit often depends on the size of the clan, but typically is much, much smaller than the military forces supporting the royalty of their nation. Lesser clans often have no more than a 20-100 person count of warriors, while greater clans often have up to 500 seasoned troops. These groups are formally trained and equipped by the clan, thus the equipment of a lesser clan will have a great disparity from that of a greater clan, as will the quality of their warriors. All clan members will generally have some form of combat training, but only truly excellent individuals will receive the support of the clan.

The Noble Clans most often have a long heritage, and support the royal family of their country. These clans are the backbone of the country, and hold enormous power within their nation. The noble clans value their face more than any other clan on Farside, aside from the royals, and thus are very careful with how they act in public. The battles or the nobles are held in secret, and often involve intrigue, and sobotage, rather than large troop movements. They often jostle their way to get the royals of their country to pass a law that will benefit themselves, and hinder their competition, rather than fighting bloody fights.

The forces of the noble clans number between 1,000 and 10,000 typically speaking, and are comprised of Elite and Advanced forces. They often have a few top quality forces, but are limited in power when compaired to the Royals' personal forces. These forces are mostly used to subdue fell beasts rather than humans, but their training often includes anti-human warfare as wars between kingdoms are still fairly common.

Royalty of Farside hold themselves above the other clans, and individuals of their nation. They often refer to themselves in the third person, and hold etiquette as something sacred. Thees and thous are quite often used, and there is a standard form of address among the nations, otherwise they would not be able to communicate. Common etiquette involves forms of address in and out of court, table manners, and speech, but each country has their own quirks in their etiquette.

The forces of the royals can be considered the best of the best in their given country. Even the weakest royal in a nation will have 5000-20,000 crack troops under his or her banner, while the King or Queen of the given nation will often have a standing army of 100,000 or more troops that are the elite or the elite. These forces are trained day and night, and are comprised of the best of the best of their nations forces. These men, and women are taken from the best forces of their constituents clans, and swear an oath of loyalty to the leader of their nation, and often to the specific royal they serve under. This depends on the country's laws, and some countries do not allow the lesser royals to have their own personal forces yet provide the forces of their leaders to protect them while others do allow these personal forces, although they have to be specially trained by that royal.

Religion on Farside:

The religion of Farside is one of the few exceptions to worshipping the Trinity Goddesses, and revolves around the spirits instead. The spirits are revered on Farside, and use their powers to help the various races of Farside. A religion that worships any given one of the Greater Spirits can be found on the planet.

On their 15th birthday, individuals of the various playable races will typically receive the blessings and protection of a spirit. Usually these spirits are lesser spirits, but once in a while a minor or major spirit may take an interest in an individual and give them their blessings. Only in extremely rare circumstances do the Greater Spirits take an interest in a specific individual and bless them. It is unheard of for more than one spirit to bless an individual.

Monsters of Farside:

Every world of Trinity Online has it's own general type of monsters, on the world of Farside, these monsters take the form of beasts, along with a few rare common monsters such as goblins.

Fell beasts are the most common type of beast, and ressemble animals, though on a larger scale. These beasts often look like a mix of several types of animals with a main body type, such as combining the body of a wolf with the features of a bull, or the body of a tiger with the wings of a bird. Fell beasts have a core that houses power, and these cores give them abilities beyond would could normally be available to animals, these abilities can include special martial abilities, being able to control a small amount of a certain element, magic, spirit powers, or things like changing their size at will, among other things. The core of these beasts can be used in various weapons, armors, and devices to produce a desired result, but careful handling is required lest they explode.

The less common types or beasts are Celestial and Daemonic beasts. These beasts are more powerful than fell beasts, and can typically use two or three powers rather than the single power fell beasts can use. As a result, their cores are highly sought after, but the powerful beasts are extremely difficult to kill. Celestial and Daemonic beasts are both extremely proud races, and it is extremely rare that they will be willing to serve a human, or their allied races as a mount. The exception to this rule being the Draega race, which is basically a wolf with a unicorn horn. Celestial Beasts tend to be proud and dignified, not causing unneeded harm to individuals, or communities. Daemonic beasts are, on the other hand, proud and violent beasts that will destroy whole communities during their rampages.

Dragon are a kind of beast that does not fit into either the Celestial, nor Daemonic categories, yet holds more than one power, so they do not fit into the category of fell beasts, yet they are commonly thought of as representative of this group. Their counterparts within the Celestial Beasts are the Celestial Qilin, and the Behemoth races.

Beasts are not the only type of mosters, there are also humanoid monsters such as goblins, ogres, trolls, pixies, and the dreaded Asura race. These races cannot be played by players under normal circumstances, but are highly intelligent, and can be befriended by players, though the majority must be approached carefully.

Goblins are quite hard to "tame", and are very much like the depictions in fantasy novels. They are uncouth, savage, and like to rape women without remorse.

Trolls are rather blockheaded, but gentle giants, but one would be wise to avoid incurring their wrath as they are extremely strong, and quite tough.

Pixies, the usual tiny humanoids with wings. They aren't very strong, but their magic power is insanely strong.

Ogres are a communal race that hold immense spiritual power. While the ogre race is, on the whole, quite strong, their intelligence is their strong point. The ogre race of Farside look like large green or red humanoids with additional animalistic features. They are powerful combatants, but generally keep to themselves without causing harm to the other races, unless provoked. There are some antagonistic Ogre trides, but on the whole they are not a race that tries to provoke others. Players of Farside have not succeeded in finding a way to unlock ogres as a playable race, so it has been considered a monster race as a result.

As the Asura race is unique to Farside, and no races of the galaxy have eight arms, the race is completely unplayable as a player race. Due to their eight arms, they differ from the Old Earth depictions of the race, and their powers do as well. The Asura are not inherently evil, nor inherently good, but they have fierce, fiery tempers and powers. The majority of the Asura race are quite short tempered, and the race's power is nothing to joke about, which has lead to people fearing them. There are two small subgroups of these Asura which either have innate ice powers and icy dispositions, or have nature & healing powers with a fairly gentle disposition, but these are seldom seen or heard of.

Special Cases of Farside:

There are two sub-races of Farside. These are, strictly speaking, not true races, but could be considered as the spirits augmenting the base race of a character. The Celestial-born and Daemon-born take on parts of the appearance, and strengths of rare celestial or daemonic beasts. It is said that the celestial-born or daemon-born sub-races are simply individuals blessed by a guardian spirit of the celestial or daemonic beasts, but this is unconfirmed. Celestial-born or daemon-born individuals tend to be rare, and are said to have only a 1 in 100,000 chance of being born. This does not make them unusual, but simply rare.

Celestial-born are very rare individuals on Farside. Not much is known about these individuals, but legend states that the Celestial born are powerful combatants with superior ability, while being rather stable. On the other hand, Daemon-born are uncommon, but can be found quite frequently on Farside. These individuals are known for their power, but are even more known for their cruelty and their rampages.

Popular descriptions for celestial-born are not well known, but they are said to be ethereal beings said to be full of righteousness. The daemon-born, on the other hand, are known for their demon-like appearance, and their cruel, selfish natures. As daemon-born are unstable, they tend to go on rampages that can even destroy entire kingdoms, so the people fear such individuals and will often kill them upon birth, before they can become a danger. Unfortunately, Siri has deemed it quite probable that many celestial-born have been killed while confusing them for daemon-born.

This information came from ingame legends and tales told by players who played on Farside, but very little first-hand information was present. Any further information on these sub-races was unfortunately not available for Siri to compile.

-----

Information of the class titles, magic, and spirit powers were surprisingly scarce. Siri had been unable to find information on more than the most basic class titles and spells, and had been unable to find any information on spirit powers at all. This was very troubling for those going into the game, but there was not much that could be done. Even information on martial arts available on Farside was somewhat sketchy, and rather ambiguous.

Information of races, classes, magic, spirit power, and technologies of other planets was quite plentiful, but when it came to Farside there was an overall lack of advanced or specific data available on the galactic network. This could be due to a number of factors, one being the lesser number of players on the planet, but the most likely reason for this would probably be players purposefully hiding information regarding these things. The players who chose Farside would obviously be affected by it's culture, greed and distrust would be a common pair of factors in this case.

-----

Siri's investigation into how the game capsules or pods worked didn't reveal much information, and her conclusion was that Supercal had carefully concealed any information pertaining to the matter. All Siri could do using her original core's capabilities was find a bunch of speculation on how they worked. The outer shells of Trinity's pods were made of a mysterious form of matter that was impervious to all attempts to warp, cut, or otherwise break into the pods, as were the surface underneath the cushion the players laid on. Add to that the fact that the neck rest that was thought to how the interface used to actually play was similarly designed and the pods were completely impervious to all but Supercal's main assembly plant, which no one knew the location of.

The fact that Supercal could hide the location of this facility for as long as they had was extremely impressive. No matter the methods or techniques in which spies and investigators had tried to track down it's whereabouts, the result was always the same. Despite trying to follow their ships to the factory with the most advanced stealth ships with the most advanced sensor equipment available, the ships were lost soon after leaving a system. No matter if they tried to follow the last known trajectory or not, the ships could not be found, and the trajectories would intersect with a nearby resort planet, and no amount of searching could find any Supercal facilities there or in any of the planets in the systems. Trying to slip spies onto the ships ended even more dismally, and not one successful individual was ever heard from again, nor was any tracking device signal ever spotted from those individuals.

Trying to get to the information through legal firms also did no good. Supercal had never allowed anything untoward to happen to their players, and the company simply didn't bother with their attempts to say that Supercal had some nefarious reason for not letting the information leak in order to get the information forcibly. Truthfully, Supercal's lawyers were far better than even the republic's finest lawyers, and were easily able to suppress such attempts. Political wrangling did no good either, as a large number of the senators are also Trinity players, and could absolutely appreciate their safety measures. In fact, there had been a number of attempts on the lives of senators while they were playing the game, and the pods had been their saving grace. The pods protected them from all forms of incoming attacks, but still allowed them to call for assistance from inside, thus giving them a way to secure their safety.

All in all, Supercal's methods could only be speculated, and never confirmed by those groups, even among the top brass of the republic the location of this facility was an enigma after all.

-----

Thraxc sat quietly at his desk looking over a report from one of his subordinates.

"So nothing has changed recently," he stated while continuing to read.

"Yes, Sir," that subordinate replied. "Although Supercal has been searching for someone recently, nothing else seems to have changed."

"Oh? They're looking for someone," Thraxc asked out of interest. "Tell me about it."

"Yes, Sir. The information is in the report. While they appear to be looking for someone, we don't have any details on whom that person might be," the woman replied.

"Hmmmm, what page?"

"Page thirteen, paragraph four, sub-paragraph B," she responded.

"Hmmmmm," Thraxc flipped through the couple of pages needed to view the indicated page, found the indicated paragraph, and began reading. "Interesting," he replied after a moment, she had certainly summarized, but it was correct that there wasn't much more information than she had stated. After a moment, he spoke once more, "continue observing the situation, and make certain those fools in the republic continue being unable to locate the old man's main facility, we don't want anyone getting any stupid ideas. I'll finish reading the report and get back to you in the evening."

"As you wish, Master Thraxc. Then I will be taking my leave," the woman replied, then exited the room.

"So the old man still hasn't recognized a successor," Thraxc muttered. "Well, not like it has anything to do with me though. All I have to do is continue ensuring that they aren't found, and the rest is the old man's business. I wonder how long it will be until his project is realized."

There were very few people who had any real knowledge about Supercal, Thraxc was one of only three outside of the company who had any real knowledge of it's scale, or the purposes behind it's founding. In truth, Supercal was a company founded just after the first contact between Terrans, or humans, and the Galactic Republic. All records of it's true purpose had long since been eradicated, and all that remained were almost forgotten provisions within the republic's laws that stated that the Republic and it's member nations could not in any way interfere with Supercal's research, resources, or commercial practices, and that Supeercal could not use it's technology to brainwash, murder, or enslave the citizens of the galaxy, nor could they have any designs on controlling the galaxy, or the Republic. These were provisions agreed upon by the old man, and the top brass of the Galactic Republic at the time of the bill's implementation, and had not been violated by Supercal even once. Although the Republic hadn't kept their side of the bargain in recent years, the old man continued to hold up his side of the bargain.

Supercal's research did not initially relate to their current game. The game came about as a result of a need for funds, and the old man used some of his unpublished technologies to create the game's pods, servers, and the necessary communications and maintainence facilities to run and play the game. The crux of Supercal's research lay in a large system designed around an old, archaic device of unknown origins.

The Reality Engine, as the old man had dubbed it, a device designed to alter the very fabric of reality. The system the old man envisioned would not allow harm to already existing sentient beings due to The Reality Engine's own alteration to reality. This did not mean that no harm would be possible from it, but it wouldn't do any harm itself, and would even adapt existing sentient beings to the changed environment. How the system worked was not something Thraxc understood, nor the device that was the crux of the whole system, but that wasn't something he needed to understand. Thraxc's only responsibility in this whole thing was to ensure that Supercal's main facilities were undiscovered by the agents of the various groups trying to find them, and that the research was undisturbed.

The facility was hidden within the Cevredin Wasteland, a no man's land within the certral part of the republic, a vast wasteland where the worlds were uninhabited by any sentient, or non-sentient life. The reason this location was chosen was to reduce damage to lifeforms in the immediate vicinity as much as possible. If a failure of the system were to occur, the old man's research indicated that the damages would not exceed the exterior of this region of space. The system was designed to redirect the power of the reality engine, and control the reaction in order to not harm sentient beings within the area the engine would affect.

The old man's intent was not to use this device for war, but for humanitarian purposes. By altering reality, the almost extinguished resources of a planet could be replenished, and perhaps undo the need for war. This was the old man's hope in working on that device, to help his people, and the other people of the galaxy to have abundant resources and habitable planets to grow without declaring war on each other. It may be a little naive, but he wished to use the device to remove such wars from existence.

The results were difficult to accept, no matter what the old man tried, he had never successfully managed to target any specific planets in the area of space Supercal hid in. The system did manage to manipulate a few random planets near the center of the cluster, but that was it. They never could manage specifics, or outside a small cluster, although he had managed to restrict it from harming sentient beings, strangely enough. In the end, the system was designated as unfeasible, while Supercal gradually further developed their virtual reality game into their main enterprise. Few knew Trinity had such a long history, and even fewer still had any knowledge of the old man who started it all.

Thraxc let out a sigh as he considered these things. It had been a long time since he had been so melancholy, it just wasn't like him. "Well, nothing is going to happen if all I do is sit here sighing," he suddenly said. "Guess I'll go pay the old man a visit." In the next instant Thraxc had vanished, without a trace.

-----

Andaros looked out the inner surface of the pod, sighing lightly. He had been doing that a lot, sighing, it was to the point that he wondered when, or if, he was going to be able to enjoy life again. The loss of his mother had hit him hard, and he hadn't had much time to process that loss with everything that had been happening thusfar. In some ways he looked forward to, and in other ways he dreaded his first play of the game.

The others would be entering the game via normal means since their pods did not include the special tutorial, and they would have a fairly basic tutorial. In his case however, he had to complete the special tutorial, as that was the one task Thraxc had insisted on for him. The platinum pod would allow the player to replay from just after initial character creation if the player so wished, but any progress they had made would be reset once more if they failed to finish the tutorial. Under normal circumstances, the player could choose to skip the tutorial if they did not successfully finish it, but Thraxc insisted that he complete the tutorial, and not take the shortcut, so no matter if he wanted to or not he would have to repeat it as many times as it took. This meant that he would have to catch up with the others should he fail to complete it in one go, and may take a very long time to do so in the event that he was unable to complete the tutorial in a small number of tries.

Once they completed the first milestone at level 50, the group were supposed to meet up in the royal capital of the Kingdom of Cerdeva, Chreltos, so taking too long may also delay the other players in advancing further within the game. Falling behind would mean not only having to catch up in level, but also delaying the others in their leveling as Cerdeva was a known low level area in the game. It was also one of the few stable kingdoms as their natural resources were not too tempting to the big kingdoms surrounding them, and the kingdom had a large role to play within the politics of the area surrounding them. While it was not a powerhouse, the kingdom of Cerdeva was a diplomatic kingdom that often helped mediate conflicts between the large empires surrounding it. None of the empires would allow either each other, nor any other kingdom to conquer Cerdeva as it played a major role in settling their disputes, due to the nation's kings all being gifted with wisdom since their birth. That was all he knew, other than th kingdom's location on the Algaoan continent.

Andaros didn't know much about the special tutorial, and not many details were available about it, other than you earned a special prize for completing it. Information on the special tutorial was very carefully managed, and players were not allowed to give any details on it, under penalty of losing their account forever, and possible mysterious disappearance of the offender. This meant he was essentially going in blind, and would have to feel his own way through. The one thing that was absolutely known was that no two special tutorials would be the same, and the special tutorial could only be completed once per planet. Thus, it was best to complete the special tutorial in one go if at all possible, he only hoped the scenario wasn't too difficult.

Andaros had no desire to be famous, nor any desire to horde wealth, have great power, or dominate others, he simply wanted a peaceful life. He had no hope of being someone great, and only wanted to enjoy his time while playing the game. Little did he know, for here his life would take many twists and turns, and today would be the start of a legend that would one day shake the galaxy.

Andaros let out a sigh once more, the closed his eyes.

"Start up."