“So, you're the ones?” Ollin starts in once the crowd has cleared. “Care to introduce yourselves?” At his prompting, everyone gives their name and some basic info.

First up is Flare. As I saw during the battle, he's a fire mage.

Besides being a seer, Hask is actually a healer who oddly, fights in melee with a staff. At least it solves the no-healer problem I was thinking about. Mary is mostly a classic fighter – except with a little skill in throwing weapons, she notes.

The human ranger is Mark and the elf is Taryn. They fight in close range and far range, respectively. I'm a bit uncertain hearing that. A party with three archers?

Nolen is the short fighter in the yellow armor. He's a tanky damage dealer that uses a halberd. When I ask, he clarifies that he isn't a Rakk, his character just happened to generate extraordinarily short. Even I have about an inch on him.

Winter is an ice mage. “Fitting...” I murmur.

Last up is Emma. It turns out she's a Kallif, a race identical to humans, but they always get either a Familiar or Transformation type Affinity. Hers is a... kind of small chimera bird thing. She doesn't describe it in much detail, but she says it's named Zykael and he's waiting outside because he gets weird indoors. Besides that, it turns out she's actually an odd class, a half and half mix between a speedy dagger user and a summoner. Not at all what I expected.

As for their levels, they range between 12 at the lowest with Emma, and 25 for Flare. The rest all hover in the upper teens. I'm assuming that's pretty average.

“So-” Just as Ollin is beginning to speak up again, someone new enters the conversation, raising a hand.

“Umm!” he calls out a little too loud before he catches himself, coming up from behind me. “Hi, I, umm, would like to help too.”

When I turn to look over the new arrival, a second sticks her head out from behind his back and chirps, “Me too!” One look says they're brother and sister. Wolf-kin with grayish yellow skin, brown hair, and gray fur on their alert, anxious ears. They're even dressed the same, in brown, beaten up overalls, which the much shorter sister probably borrowed from the brother.

What really catches my eye though, is their age. Probably still teenagers, with him looking sixteen or seventeen, and her about a year younger.

“You want to help?” Ollin asks, eyebrows shooting up. “Aren't you two Nirvallan?”

“Well, yeah, we are,” the boy responds hesitantly.

“Don't you know it's dangerous? And aren't you two a bit young? Where are your parents?” I catch Ollin's tone beginning to slip again, very slightly as he shifts into a kind of motherly sound. How old is the woman playing Ollin, I wonder...?

“We... well...” While the boy hedges nervously, his sister speaks up again.

“We lost them. We were... actually hoping to go with you to Mebin while you're traveling. We have some family there.”

Everyone winces when they tell us about their parents. Then Ollin responds, “I'm sorry for your loss.” The players all have a pretty heavy air about them, but it feels a little odd consoling the kids like this. Given how they're NPCs, do they even have parents, or is that just part of their backstory? Were they just generated now to offer us an escort quest? Does this game work like that? I don't know, but now isn't exactly the best time...

What Ollin says next though, I don't expect. “However. Their journey is going to be dangerous, it's not suitable for kids your age. You should ask some Guardians to take you instead, we do it all the time for Nirvallans.”

“We know that,” the girl pouts, before being waved down by her brother.

“We're aware of that, but we don't have anything to offer, our family's shop was destroyed by the Oblivion.” Wait, if that's the case, their backstory is that their parents died during the invasion? Was the quest generated based on the damage to the town?

“What was the name of the shop?” Ollin asks darkly.

I stand, blinking, as Ollin and the kids go back and forth for a minute to clarify the exact store in town, and their parents' names.

“That shop,” Ollin sighs with a hand to his head. “I knew those two...” He takes a breath through gritted teeth, before raising his eyes again. “Under these circumstances, I'm sure there would be some Guardians who would take you along, even for free,” he suggests.

That is when I finally realize something. Something crucial about these two.

These are not quest NPCs, generated on the spot to give us something fun to do. These are AI citizens whose parents we failed to protect, that are now orphans and refugees because of it. Shit.

“Why do you think we're asking like this?” the boy points out, with an awkward expression. “We can't offer a reward, but we can help in exchange. And you're looking for help, so, you know, we want to join the party. We'll pull our own weight so we can get to Mebin.”

“Mmm...” Ollin still looks uncomfortable with the idea, but he isn't exactly the one deciding here.

“What do you guys think?” I ask the gathered Guardians. “Are we making this a multi-part quest?”

Hands go up for and against, the result coming out 8 to 3, in favor of taking them with us. A couple shrug and say we'll end up stopping there anyway, so we may as well. The only nays come from Flare, Mark, and Winter.

But... “Lara, why did you vote?” I ask.

“Because I'm going with you,” she responds pointedly, giving me a look. “You don't expect me to send you off on this major quest all on your own, do you?”

“I... But what about Lenarlil?”

“What about it?” she huffs.

“Aren't you an important part of the city council? Can you really leave now?” I have serious doubts about this. What happens when there's another attack?

Lara forms a small pout and crosses her arms. “I can go whenever I want, the city will be fine without me for a little while.”

“Mmmm...” I murmur uncertainly as I look past to Ollin. He's clearly displeased, but isn't speaking up.

“Well, guess that decides it,” Hask concludes with a clap of his hands. “Koru and Azra will be joining us.” That reminds me to check their nametags, before he follows up, “Now, how about an introduction?”

“I'm Azra,” the girl goes first, leaning a little further out from behind her brother. “For adventuring I'd be... a level 8 healer.”

“Koru,” the brother follows, scratching his cheek and glancing from one person to another. “Level 7 support.”

With all that decided, there isn't much more to do here. After a muttered discussion between Lara and Ollin about her invasion compensation and taking a break from the city council, we head out.

As soon as we leave the building, we get to meet Zykael, Emma's familiar. As she described, he's a sort of chimera. With the head and body of a dog, legs more like a cat, and a tail of a scaly lizard. Two large, draconic wings extend from his back as he glides down to Emma.

He lands on her shoulder, his hooked claws digging into the one large leather pauldron she wears there, and we all gather around briefly to get a better look.

Zykael is a little larger than Emma's head with his wings folded up. The furry parts are dark blue, with gray scales on his tail, and a little more red in the wings. No wonder why she's no good at describing the thing...

After the brief distraction, we continue on. Helios sticks with us for now, lots of other eyes following our trek through town. We hit a number of stores along the way, picking up travel rations and restocking on potions. Some of the others buy up various other stuff too. Clothes and accessories, things that look like magic runes, pieces of cloth and stone and wood, and other bits and bobs I can't even identify.

A few of the guys even pull out traveling packs when they run out of space in their inventories. Apparently, just wearing the bags increases inventory space, but they can get really heavy the more stuff you load into the expanded storage space.

Meanwhile, I spend most of my remaining money on travel rations and a few other necessary items, like a bedroll for sleeping since my my character won't actually disappear when I log off.

Lara pays for the kids' supplies, mentioning that she knew their parents too and wants to make it up to them. Then we make one more stop, at Lara's request.

“Ryvas!” she calls as she enters the weapons shop that's still pretty crowded. She pushes aside the people in her way, drawing angry complaints, and even Ryvas scowls at her as she reaches the counter.

“What is it, Lara?”

“I'm going on a major quest, I just wanted to put in an order for a replacement sword before I go. Ollin will be by with the payment later, alright?”

“Fine, fine, you got it,” he sighs, waving a hand. “Now please, stop interrupting,” and he gives a pointed look to the person he was talking to before she cut in.

“Thanks, you're a life saver, Ryvas!” She waves a hand as she slogs back through the crowd toward where we're gathered at the door. Ryvas, for his part, does offer a small wave back, before he returns to his previous customer.

With that, we're back out in the street, about half our group looking awkward and embarrassed at Lara's over the top rude behavior. We manage to settle down by the time we make it to the town gate, all equipping our gear on our way out. Without any further ceremony, we're off. Time for my very first adventure...

Outside Lenarlil, we immediately pass over a big stone bridge, crossing a decent size stream. Then we're on a well traveled dirt road, plenty other travelers moving in the same direction.

Looking up, the morning sun has risen higher up overhead throughout our time in the city, afternoon approaching. It's still up ahead, meaning we're heading east.

After a while walking, I speak up to ask, “So... where are we going exactly?”

“Icutha,” Mark is the first to reply, but that's not very helpful.

“Sorry, I'm not familiar with the geography here. Where is that?”

Hask moves in to follow up, throwing one hand over my shoulder and raising his other up toward the sky. “Icutha is the land to the east,” he begins grandly. “Lots of land, and lots of forests. And lots and lots of people dat talk like dis.” As he speaks, he suddenly shifts his accent. It's pretty forced, but is that... a Chicago accent? Then, Hask suddenly grunts, and by the way he jolts, I realize that Mary just jabbed him in the side.

“Please ignore him,” she says quietly. “Icutha primarily covers Wisconsin and Illonois, so a good portion of the...” she pauses for just a moment, and I catch her eyes moving toward the two Nirvallans in our party. “-Guardians there are probably from urbanized areas around Chicago.”

“Oh...” I nod a few times, before noticing more rapid message flashes from my stream. It quieted down after everything earlier, so I flick it up to check, but it's mostly just a few people mentioning that they live there. One says he plays in Icutha, and he'll be keeping an eye out for me when we get there so they can say hi, which makes me smile.

“So what about you two?” Lara asks. “You said you're from Eastra, right? How in the world did you get all the way to Lenarlil?”

With his big grin returning, Hask waves a hand in another unreasonably grand gesture and begins to tell his long tale.

They live in New York City, apparently the region Eastra covers. Hask always wanted to travel, which materialized in the form of a Major Growth type Affinity for his character that makes him grow permanently stronger the more new locations he travels to. I'm surprised when he mentions something like that so openly, but I'm quickly getting the impression that he's just that kind of person.

With that said, his Major Affinity cemented his and Mary's plans to go traveling in this world, since their jobs keep them from getting out of New York much.

When they started playing, they headed north, through Chokreta and Zephys. They had to avoid a lot of the monsters as they went, either too strong or too numerous for them while they were low level. In order to pass from Zephys into the Oterit region, they had to team up with a number of other Guardians to fight their way through a monster infested valley squeezed between two mountain ranges.

From there, they skirted the edge of the Salma region, taking a short boat ride over the Demon Sea to bypass The Great Divide.

I swear, the more names they throw out, the more confused I become. How big is this game's map...?

In any case, after visiting Aenathan City, they hit Ibronshil, and finally after one more struggle through monsters in a mountain pass between the two regions, they came to Lenarlil. That's... eight different regions they passed through on their way here? The game's only been out for a month...

By the time Hask finishes regaling us with their whole tale of traveling, we've been on the road for almost an hour, and Lenarlil has long since disappeared behind us.

“How many regions are there?” I ask, pretty surprised by all this. I need to look up a world map when I have a chance.

“A lot,” Hask laughs. “Twenty in the Usa continent. And yes, they just took USA and just made that the continent name.”

I cover my mouth to hold in the burst of laughter that comes on reflex. But when I drop it again, I double over anyway. “Why... why would they- hahahaha!” All the crazy fantasy names, and they decided to be lazy with the continent? Whoever made that decision totally got fired! Everyone else looks amused too.

There are tears in my eyes and my shoulders keep shaking even when I straighten up again and try to control myself. Lara has to give me an arm to hold onto as I wipe at my face with my free hand.

“Mm?” I lift a brow when I notice a little golden light appear around her. Some kind of Affinity buff...?

We settle into a comfortable walk for a while longer.