[Bryce deGrey POV]

I was walking the grounds of our town, enjoying a pleasant Saturday. A looked upon the towering Guildhall, so massive but made to look elegant and delicate. The Second Guildmaster was a true genius, a master architect. I think fondly of her, still saddened by her parting from us. I continued on, thinking a bit nostalgically after thinking about the founders, I guess reminiscing about the past comes with growing age. As the bitter thoughts about my advancing age lingered, I felt a tremor coming from the ground. It was a slight tremor, barely noticeable. My thoughts were broken by it, so I became curious what the possible cause could be. As I pondered the possible causes, a massive tremor suddenly shook the earth. The ground rumbled violently, bringing me to my knees and arms. I held on to dear life, wondering if the shaking would ever stop. But just like that, as soon the rumbling was too much for me it vanished. I looked around and saw other townspeople were also driven to the knees. They were just as bewildered as I was, we looked around to see nothing else was disturbed. It was like the quake only affected people, probably a hostile spell. Realizing we might be under attack, I ran to go up to the guildhall to speak to the Guildmaster.

The current Guildmaster is an enigmatic one, one who chooses his/her form by sheer whim. The avatar I first knew her as, was Nekras Atessa. He was a large lion-beastman [Paladin] with a bright and cheerful personality. The heart and soul of the whole guild, his charisma was so great that even the townspeople loved him. But then he changed forms, and again, and again, and again. Each personality was different, some were male, some were female, some were good, some were evil but each one was unique and different from the others. I almost thought it was a different person each time, but the look in their eyes was always the same. I never understood why he/she changed so much, it seemed so alien to me. But after my daughter was saved by him/her by becoming an avatar, I no longer doubted this guildmaster. I no longer cared how or why he/she changed avatars so much. She saved the life of my only child. This favor of life time has forever bound me to be loyal to this one, even after he/she passes on.

I think fondly of our bond together, as I run to the staircase to deliver my message. But just at the steps, I felt another quake. This quake was nothing like the others, it warped and shaped the land. I saw the ground began to recede and contract like waves in an ocean. The air shimmered with strange energy, sometimes becoming as thick as water to walk through. I was no longer able to keep moving, the rapid ground movements made anything but holding on to dear life impossible. I fought and held on as long as I could, but my strength faded leaving me at mercy to the quake. I only lasted through 1 wave before my consciousness was robbed of me. My last thought was how I failed the guildmaster, lamenting at my own powerlessness.

I had a dream, standing in a field of darkness in a world in permanent night. The floor was wet, like the world was a giant puddle. But when I looked up, I saw a night sky glittering with stars. 3 moons were in the sky, one of the moons was bone white, another was blue and green, and the last was red flaked with spots of gold. I gazed upon the night sky, awed by the majesty that I am witnessing. Without realizing someone was right next to me, or perhaps they were there the whole time. The person was wearing shepherds clothing and a hood and veil upon their face. They carried a shepherd’s crook with a lantern attached to it, and they stood silently there without any reaction to me noticing them.

“Who are you? Are you here to take me to the afterlife?” I asked the mysterious shepherd.

They said nothing, but instead pointed their crook towards a direction. In that direction a path of fireflies started appearing, perhaps this is the pathway to the heavens. I somehow knew this direction is where I needed to go, without even realizing it myself I walked on this lit path. Save them, the ones who walk a dangerous path. I heard the shepherd say this, but I didn’t turn around to face them. Once you are on this path, you can never turn back or forever lose your way. I felt this instinctively, as I walked alongside the fireflies with my consciousness slowly fading away.

I awoke again at the steps of the Guildhall, the tremors and quakes have finally ceased. I got up quickly to see the damage that was done by the attackers, but nothing was destroyed. I was dazed by how seren everything felt compared to the disaster I just experienced, and the strange dream that I had. But then I looked beyond the new walls that were constructed, and saw terrain and forest that was not familiar at all. I thought perhaps my head was hit a bit hard during the quakes, but no matter how long I tried to look at it nothing around the town was familiar. Stuck in my own stupor, I was broken out of it with the wails of sorrow and shock coming from inside of the town. I rushed over to see what had happened, but what I saw would terrify us mortals more than any other sight.

I saw the Heavenborne screaming and crying with anguish and despair, wailing at some sort of horrific event. The other townsfolk who saw this knew something terrible has happened, since it has reduced the invincible Heavenborne as mewling children. Panic then began to spread to the townsfolk, I mean how could we ever overcome something that has even these deities despairing? I found one who was not quivering with fear, though he still had a terrified look upon his eyes. His name was Yarec Femmos, a rather insidious Tiefling [Necromancer] but I had no other choices but him.

“Master Yarec, would you kindly tell me what has happened?” I politely asked.

He looked at me and scoffed at my words, he then walked out to the other Heavenborne to come with him. He picked people he seemed to trust and began walking to the guildhall, I assume to explore it for answers. I followed as well, which prompted some curious looks from the Heavenborne but I ignored it. The rest of Heavenborne also ignore the Townsfolk, I know that they tend to be arrogant but never this cruel. I took upon myself to take one of my knights with me, At least then I would have someone who I can trust there. Before I can set upon my quest to the guildhall, a messenger sent by the Underkeep has given me terrible news. My daughter has collapsed, and will not be awakened. I thought back to the words said by the Shepherd, and set to fulfill my duty as the right hand of the Guildmaster and Grandmaster of the Knight of the Chronicle.

-After the Speech in the Plaza-

I have reunited with my master, who currently resides in her newest avatar. A rather young half-drow, I would estimate her age between 18 or 21 years of age. She was vexed by her inability to calm the hearts of the masses, but she should not be so worried. She was never known as a Charismatic Guildmaster, in fact she was known to be quite eccentric and alien to us mortals. But when she saved my daughter’s life and gave her freedom despite being an avatar, it won the hearts of many of us mortals. I am also quite glad that she seems to be a female Heavenborne, I don’t know as a father if I could handle a male using the body of my Daughter as an avatar. She certainly was not taken aback by my calling of her as Lady Nhilvin, so my assumption seems to be correct. At least it is not the story of one villager who had a heavenborne wife, he’s so called “wife” was truly a male heavenborne in a female avatar. The strange actions of these people confound me to no end.

She is still adorably ashamed of her less than stellar oratory performance, but I simply patted her head. She has a lot of stress on her, being so young and leading us in perhaps the worst kind of disaster. But of all of the guildmasters, she was the most brilliant in terms of research. There were no other guild members who had contributed more to our Chronicle, there could be no better person to discover an alien world with. I just need to keep the peace with the townsfolk until her and her companions' achievements will speak for themselves. That is how I can help repay the debt of saying my daughter’s life.

[Alex POV]

2 Weeks has come by and gone in a flash, 2 weeks of hard training and all night research and planning has completed. The first few days were a slog of domestic hell, full of complaints from us Players and the NPCs. The poor village man who has come to realise his wife was a man this whole time, that was a horrible nightmare to sort out. Bryce and I had to actually go to the town hall with the both of them to try to sort it out, which eventually ended in a divorce. They had 2 kids as well...it was a real nightmare of a situation, and the worst part was that the player actually didn’t care. Well, at least at first.

One of the things we have learned during the 2 weeks, was that memories and fragments of our bodies original lives were beginning to come back to us. Those who put nothing in the backstory only had basic things, but people like me had a flood of memories. Like remembering being in the Underdark where my father saved me from my abusive drow mother. Or like our recently divorced Half-elf mother, who was named Henry in the real world, what was once apathy towards the situation has now turned into crying nights at the tavern. As it turns out, strong memories like those of motherhood and family have a way of taking over the original ego. There were other situations, like a player whose backstory was that he had several lovers in the town. None of which knew each other existed, until the disaster happened. I drank a lot during this time as well, though I can’t seem to pinpoint the reason why…

Beyond the domestic troubles and the troubling awakening of memories that I never had before, there was also the process of learning magic and weapons skills all over again. Those first training sessions were hell, Blake especially since he had to learn how to wield a massive sword along with his new body weight and dimension. One of the positive changes since the Transfer, was that our library became far more detailed than ever before. I read one of my unique [Job] reports, I sounded like a true scholar and master of magic study. I couldn’t even believe how different I sounded in the report compared to the real me. I have come to realize that people have expectations that I am some master scholar, most of my studies have been trying not to fail those expectations.

One of the things I actually discovered in one of basic tomes, is how to access our items in our personal inventories. It was a spell called Space Storage, and it was incredibly difficult to use. It required a material called Void Gems to be consumed for 1 cast of this spell. Void Gems are pretty common to find while mining, but now that we no longer have a mine we have a limited supply. And the spell takes forever to cast and has a verbal component as well, the hope of using this as a permanent storage for ourselves is a bust. For the most part, we have people empty their Space Storage and place the items in their own chest in their lodgings, or donate it to the treasury. The only use we have for it is when an exploration team has a large amount of heavy items to transport back and have the time to cast it. For the most part, we are using Magic Bags of Holding that will be worn by a support member of the exploration team. They can’t hold as much and get gradually heavier with more items stored, but it is better than carrying everything by hand.

Bryce and his Knight Order began to train us properly in the arts of magic and weapon forms. Blake was the quickest to pick up the training, probably because he already was used to training through football. He had a tough time with the sword training, but he powered through and is now able to use his Zveihandler to a certain extent. Magic was difficult, because we had to be able to feel the flow of mana within ourselves which something we had never done before. We also have another problem, there are tons of magic systems that have different properties with each other. A [Cleric] and a [Wizard] have completely different sources of power. In fact, most magic classes use a different source for their abilities. This, along with the massive changes to magic properties of this world has significantly slowed it down. The first expeditions will not even have magic users, that is how behind they are.

The only saving grace is that the crafting classes for the most part are not as affected. [Alchemists] and [Artificers] do have magic in their crafting, but we had the former NPCs teach us how to do it manually instead of through a crafting menu. Luckily for these magic crafters, the magic systems here are not too different from the magic the NPCs were used too. The [Enchanters] unfortunately were not as lucky, and are just as stuck as the rest of the magic users. The pure production classes such as [Blacksmith] and [Carpenter] only had to learn how to craft by hand. Apparently your natural magic seeps out as you work the material infusing into the product, there is no special magic for them to use as far as we are aware of. The crafters have to learn everything the hard way, but at least the goals are within sight unlike us Magic Users.

The only workable magic we have, is channeling mana to around your body. You can channel mana to your eyes to enhance your vision. You can also channel it towards your fists to make an enhanced punch, I actually managed to knock down a tree when I tried it. Blake tried it and splintered the damn tree into pieces. These are techniques that did not exist in the game, and no job is restricted from trying it. All that is required is the mana and the know-how, though is probably only possible with Heavenborne since we have enhanced bodies that can use magic easily. Though Bryce and a couple of his knights were able to enhance their vision with it, that is probably because they are elites of the NPCs in terms of ability.

You might ask, how about summoners? Well let me tell you, I have literally nothing in terms of progress. Literally Nothing...mostly because the magic system for [Summoners] was reworked just before we were transferred. So I can’t use that as a basis for research, for the record I tried the old method and got nothing. I also have to plan the expeditions and organize the parties and supplies for them. Also having to deal with the disputes between us and the NPCs has also been a massive damper to my progress on summoning. I am also half-drow, so I can even train in the sunlight with the rest of my guild without possibly fainting. Fucking sunlight sensitivity, why did I have to pick a fucking drow?!? Sitting in the shade or using an umbrella while I see the rest of the guild doing exercise and training with swords made me feel pretty pathetic. At least Bryce and Kira rotate to keep me company, so I have someone to talk to though that makes me even more like a child. At least I am not a full drow or a vampire, I pity the fools who chose that…

So most of my time has been indoor activities, like researching, studying, reading research books, learning, experimenting, and documenting. If that all sounds the same, they are...I am really really tired of the indoor life. I can’t even switch Jobs because I am still on my first job for this character. So the only things I can pick now are just more summoner classes. For the record, I tried using the dagger to see if I can unlock the [Rogue] job. But I nearly stabbed myself by accidently dropping it, needless to say I am now banned from daggers.

We did make a few discoveries in the job system, there is still no status that shows our abilities or stat scores, but we can unlock completely different jobs from different classes by just training with the weapons. And enough training does eventually unlock jobs farther down, and even more amazing is that you don’t seem to lose bonuses from the job if you unequip for another. Rhyse could still use his Word Magic even when he temporarily changed his job to [Warrior], though it became much more mana intensive to use. This realization made us truly understand that everything we know is suspect. My working theory is that the whole class system is removed, but I only have suspicions and no concrete answers.

I am currently sitting at a ridiculously luxurious desk, in the Guildmaster office. This was originally a much smaller room in the game, since you could do everything from the menu anyway. Now that everything is real, the office is filled with file cabinets, books, maps, and plenty of paper and ink. My current project is to create a new economic plan for our city-state. Since we heavily relied on trade with other guilds and the npcs relied on trade with other towns and cities, all economic activity has frozen. Money and prices essentially had no meaning now, since there was no new influx of goods. There are still taverns that make money and the breweries that make liquor and of course food is still stable, but miners and metal workers have nothing to work with now. The players aren’t interested in spending money because of the lack of income, and the npcs are giving out quests like usual for the players to earn money. Essentially, I had to do a massive economic stimulus package to get the economy flowing again. This includes giving all of my guild members wages for expeditions and the knights for protecting the town.

You might think this is obvious, but I also have the problem of no income for the treasury. My only way of recouping some of the loss is taking a portion of the loot of each expedition team. But that just drives down participation, especially since people can freely change jobs and have moved to crafting to avoid the danger of the expeditions. I guess we can sell some stuff to the NPCs, but they don’t have the money to come anywhere near what is needed to run this guild. At least the taxes given to the town hall pay the wages for knights protecting the city, I only have to pay them when they go on expedition. I made 2 former Accounting majors become my secretaries, they are the only thing keeping me sane. I have only done the job of ruling a town for 2 weeks, but I already want to abdicate…

“Lady Nhilvin, are you doing alright?” Bryce said to me, checking in on me as he did his rounds.

“Ah Sir Bryce, I am doing fine. Finishing up the details to jumpstart our economy. Would you please bring a copy of my plan to the Mayor of Athenaeum? I would like him to look over the details to make sure nothing is amiss.” I said to him weakly, showing my fatigue over paperwork.

“I most certainly will, but perhaps you should head out to town soon? The first expedition is setting out in an hour. I am sure that your presence will help boost morale.” Bryce said, in a paternal voice.

“Wait, is it really morning already!?” I open the heavy blinds behind to see sunlight peeking through the violet dawn sky. “Oops, like this was another all nighter.” I said exhaustedly, getting tired of all of the all nighter I have had to do recently.

“My my, you have been pushing yourself too hard this past week. Try to get some rest after seeing the expedition off. Seeing their leader is poor health will drop morale after all.” Bryce said while grabbing my cloak and umbrella. I am feeling more and more like a child these days…

Bryce helps me put on my cloak, and hands me my umbrella as we walk out of my office. I have the documents to hand over to the mayor in my hand, protected inside a leather parcel. I hold underneath my arm as we walk through the guildhall, going through the major at the center of the disk. I hand over the parcel to Bryce, and unfold my umbrella as I walk out. Being a drow is suffering, fuck you sun! I glared angrily at the rising light over the horizon, one of the many things that is mentally draining about my new body. We walk over to the staircase, and walk down slowly due to my grogginess. We make it down to the ground floor, seeing the sun rise brightly on a clear day. The first 2 expedition teams were readying the supplies and the pack animals that hold their magic bags. We see the townsfolk have also helped with loading of supplies, the unity of the 2 different peoples brings a warm smile to my face.

The First Expedition team will be sent to follow the river next to our town upstream. Their goal to see the source of the water, and maybe find another town or village along the way. The leaders of this Expedition are Michael, Rachel, Kira, Jaxon, and Peyton. Michael is the commander, while Rachel is the navigator and mapper. Kira is the muscle of the group, being a big bad Half-Orc [Amazon]. While Jaxon is going to gather any potential foods and spices for us to use. He is a massive human [Gourmet Knight] , a job that is devoted to finding good ingredients. Peyton is a halfling [Artificer], her job for the team is maintaining all of the necessary magical equipment, including the magic bags. They have a total 16 Heavenborne with them, along with 2 pack mules to carry supplies. Of the 2 missions, they have the longest one, it will take 3 weeks to make it round trip. But it is also easier to not get lost, the reason why Rachel is there instead of team 2 is so she can properly map the source of our river.

The Second Expedition team is led by Blake, Tyler, Rhyse, Jack, and Anne. Their goal is to explore the river up north, to see where it ends up. Since the River is quite large, if it reaches the sea we have an easy to send ships to explore. Blake is the charismatic leader who can handle a ragtag group like this, he is also the best at combat in our entire guild right now. Tyler is right now mostly a useless spell caster, but unlike me he has actually developed combat skills with his edgy looking scythe. He is a Tiefling [Necromancer], maybe he can develop his magic during the journey. Rhyse is the lanky elven [Sage], the only one who can currently use magic. His job is to use his Worldly Wisdom passive skill to navigate the and map the journey. Jack is the fallen aasimar [Oathbreaker], probably the edgiest avatar in the guild. He is decently skilled in combat and he has a passive fear aura that will keep enemies away from them. Anne is now a female human [Warrior], her role is to keep Rhyse safe, since he is the only magic user we have. They also have a total of 16 Heavenborne with them, as well as a Rothe, a large pack animal similar to an oxen. Of the teams, I believe this one has the best chance of finding due to the passive abilities of the [Sage] job.

The lot of these explorers and townsfolk were far too busy to pay attention to the arrival of Bryce and I. Each of their faces are almost beaming, there is some amount of fear but the overwhelming majority are excited to explore this world. This is afterall, a dream-like scenario of living in a fantasy world. They packed everything tight in the saddle bags, double checked their equipment, and did a little part formation practice. My friends spotted me, all of them took turns saying hello and chatting with me a little bit. Kira wanted to scold me for having another all-nighter, but sighed instead since the situation couldn’t be helped. Eventually the time came, the time for them to leave on their journey. The sun was almost completely up, and a large crowd of townsfolk and guild members were gathered to cheer them as they went on the journey. I wished them all farewell and safe travels, wishing I could do more as they picked up their gear and started marching out. In the golden rays of the accursed sun, I saw my friends disappear into the horizon on a journey that I was unable to join them in. It feels bitter, a similar feeling I had back at home to be honest. That feeling that I am once again wasting away precious time.

Bryce and I waved at the retreating teams, finishing our duty of seeing them off. Bryce said his farewell, and went to the town hall to give my economic plan to the mayor. I also retreat back towards the guild hall, going to take a long nap on the comfy couch in my office. I trudge along the stairs, reaching the peak after an annoyingly long climb up the stairs. I see magic users practicing mana channeling and experimenting with spell formation. Still not going well though, I thought as I walked passed them shambling like a zombie. I walked inside the temple and passed by a book I have never seen before in our library. An ancient looking tomb with no cover and bound by crumbling black leather. In a spark of curiosity, I picked it up and carried it with me to my office. I put it on the coffee table, and fell into the couch. Sleep overtook me seconds after I laid down, which is unfortunate. Because if I stayed awake one moment longer, I would have noticed that the book was opening itself up.