Chapter 2 - Class Change

Dusting himself off, Nathan pulled himself off a marble altar and shook his head to clear himself of teleportation daze. He was startled for a moment as he felt Alvia’s long tresses brush against his back and obscure his sight. Allowing his delicate leg to dangle over the edge of the altar he placed his arm behind himself to support himself as he leaned back to look around.

He was currently surrounded by large columns of marble that reached to dizzying heights, supporting the Cathedral’s granite arched ceiling. Stained glass, statues, paintings, and candles were unmistakable; he was with in the Cathedral of the Divine.

The Cathedral was Threefold's central place of worship for the three races of the city. As such it represented the faith of humanity, elves, and dwarves alike. Carved into the stone and marble he could see a representation of the Dwarf Maker as he shaped and formed the world in his great Forge. A painting showed Aerdrie Faenya the creation goddess of wind and water cupping the world in her hands. The stained glass depicted the radiant light of creation that humanity favored. It was a breathtaking sight that never ceased to impress regardless of how many times he had woken in this very place as Col after a raid wipe. Coming here, even if it wasn’t truly his intention, seemed to have a calming effect on his mind. It gave him a chance to really put things into perspective to figure out what he was going to do.

“Quite the sight isn’t it, dear?”, announced a sing song voice. Turning his head he watched an Elven woman dressed in a long white gown walk past the prayer benches towards the altar that he was lazing about on. In a moment of embarrassment at his utter lack of manners, he slipped off the altar into rigid attention.

“Oh dear, please relax. I had no intention of disturbing your contemplation,” the woman said as she approached with a smile. “But you seemed like you had a lot on your mind. If I may ask, what is troubling you, dear child?” It took a moment but Nathan recognized the woman’s attire. She was a priestess of Airdrie. He relaxed his shoulders and gave a weak smile.

He averted his eyes and spent what felt like forever staring at the floor. He wasn’t sure how to respond. The NPCs were very lifelike but in many ways limited; they weren’t allowed to really know that their world was a game. He had watched a friend of his in Beta spend a couple of hours debating with an NPC from the mage tower about reality only to get nowhere. On impulse, he decided to try and explain everything; from playing the Beta, how much he loved to tank, and all about his encounter with the High King’s Herald. He figured that just saying it out loud might help him come to a decision.

“Oh my, it does seem as if you have been given some tough trials to face. Unexpected major life changes are a fact of life, though the level of change you speak of is… well, frankly it is miraculous. Truly a divine power has set you upon an unexpected path. When the gods affect mortals directly in such powerful ways, it has been my experience that one can only take one step at a time, moving forward along what path seems right for you.”

Nathan nodded slowly, even though he wasn’t quite sure what to make of her response. It sort of gave him a small shiver since she truly seemed aware of his plight. “So what should I do? As it stands I don’t think I can act in the front lines and defend my friends. Not as I am now, and to change that would mean abandoning what I was given. And I don’t think I can do that either. So what path is open to me?”

“I do not believe the God's close paths to people. They may offer a guiding, some may say a meddling hand, but in the end we all retain our free will. And yet, if the gods have given you a gift of power, a blessing… it is for a reason. You may try to live up to those gifts, or you may defy them, rally against them. If you ask my advice, I would say to trust in the guidance of the divine, though…” she smiles softly, “you must understand my opinion is somewhat biased. Airdrie called me to her service and I was overjoyed to answer the call and serve as her emissary.”

“So what would the gods ask of me?”, he asked with more sarcasm than he indented to. “I can’t even become a Wizard with these blessings.” His mind latching immediately onto the [Benevolent Healer] passive bonus. Until that very moment, he had a sort of realistic shot at playing as sub-par Paladin. Or even a straight up DPS. But if he wasted a 20% increase to healing skills, any healer that found out would murder him.

“Now that I am afraid I can not say. But if you search your heart, I think you might find the answer more easily within reach than you expect.” Her smile was not remotely diminished by the harshness of his words.

Seeing his indecision the Priestess closed her eyes and chanted a prayer. A golden blue-silver light coalesced into a shining memory crystal. “But if I may be so bold, I believe you might make a fine sister to my order,” she said as she offered the crystal to Nathan.

A part of Nathan was livid; he knew this was the only logical choice. The game was almost mocking him. “Hey there buddy. You want to be a tank? Well tough luck, you're a healer now, have fun. You haven’t played the class before? Welcome to the club, all the newbies haven’t played their class before either. At least you have a heads up. So stop whining and man up, or rather girl up!”

For a moment Nathan considered that his inner monologue was a bit of a dick, and he was about to call it out for that, when it dawned on him that he was arguing with himself. That likely didn’t say great things about his mental health at the moment. But his dick of an inner voice was right.

“Fine, If I'm doing this... I’m doing this right!” She grabbed the crystal and placed it against her forehead.

There was a thump in her mind as the priest skills flooded from the crystal into her mind. It wasn’t unpleasant, just a slightly odd tingling feeling lingered between her eyes. A soft chime from her bracelet indicated the new Class and skills that had been added.

Class: [Priestess of Aerdrie]
LVL = 1
HP = 220
MP = 580

STR = 10
CON = 11

DEX = 12

INT = 39 (base 12 +10 bonus reward + 10 bonus reward + 5 bonus reward + 1.8 bonus reward 5% )

SPI = 29 (base 9 +10 bonus reward +10 bonus reward )
.
[Healing Water]
Heals for 400% of Int power cost 36 MP
Cast 1.5 secs avg

[Cleansing Mist]
Clears 1 magic or poison debuff every 5s for 15s
Cost 18 MP
Cast 2 secs avg

[Cutting Wind]
Deal Single Target Wind Damage for 220% of INT, Cost 4 MP
Cast Time: 1.5 sec avg

[Gale]
Knocks Target back 20 yards, induces a stun effect for 3 secs, Cost 20MP
Time: Instant cast

“I welcome you to the sisterhood!” The Priestess stated gleefully as if she was watching a newborn fawn taking its first steps. She closed in, giving Alvia a deep hug then brushed a lock of aqua blue hair from her eyes.

The Priestess released her hold and quickly walked over to an oak chest tucked in a small alcove at the end of the room between two tall bookcases. “Before you leave on your journey to discover this land and yourself please take this, as a token of your new beginning,” she said as she pulled a silk bag from the chest.

As she accepted the bag Alvia’s bracelet pinged again; a quick check showed an inventory update.

[Initiated Robes of Aerdrie]
+1 Int

[Initiated Sandals of Aerdrie]
+1 Wis

[Initiated Staff of Water and Wind]
+2 Int +2 Wis

[Initiated Ring of Life]
On use effect. Allows 1x battle resurrection.
3 hour cool down after use

With a tap of the interface an aqua blue form-fitting robe trimmed with white shimmered around her in a whirlwind of white sparkles. The soft silky material felt and moved different from the beginner's mini dress she had been wearing. It ended just at her ankles with two long slits along legs up to her hips granting her easy movement. While it didn’t seem to hinder her movement it did change her natural posture.

She equipped her staff as well. It was made of crystal clear blue glass and was about a head longer than she was tall. A deep ocean blue orb was mounted at the tip of the staff, its color leaking through the clear crystal giving it a blueish hue.

Feeling the weight of the staff in her hand, Alvia gave it a light swing. The shaft felt awkward in her hand and the movement was unfamiliar; her Beta character Col had never bothered learning any Staff arts. She gave another swing and felt the Staff slip in her hand. Barely regaining her grip before it went flying, she gave a sigh of frustration.

[Failed to learn basic Staff arts]

A light comforting pat on her shoulder pulled her attention away from her failure. “Practice makes perfect, so just keep it up." With a blush, Alvia nodded and shifted uncomfortably in the silence. “Well I think I'm going to go and help someone maybe.”

The Priestess smiled, “Well then, go and find your path in the world, or if you like there some weeds in the garden the could use some pulling.” Alvia’s spider sense started to tingle, she turned and almost bolted for the exit.

“Maybe next time,” she yelled back at the priestess with a forced smile as she ducked through the open Cathedral doors. “Dodged that one.” she muttered in relief. A beginner's quest was always structured like that, a mundane task that would quickly chain to another quest. The problem was that the rewards in starter quests were mediocre. They were more for showing the ropes of UWO to allow a new player to ease into the game.

She had heard that a few of the newbie quests could chain into legendary quest lines but from her math it was faster to just grind out experience on monsters at the beginning. Then she could selectively pick quests later. Her goal after all was to hit the level cap, not build NPC fame.

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“Two mana and health potions and one antidote potion.” Alvia pointed to the two potions on the merchant's counter. The merchant, a leathery weathered man named Davis, was leaning back in his rocking chair. Cracking an eye open he gave Alvia a sleepy stare.

The old man sleepily gave her a once over “Sorry missy, gots nothing for sale.” he said with a yawn. Alvia frowned, Davis was the old timer that ran the Davis Pawn and Potions stall near the Explorers’ Tower, and had a reputation for selling rare items and buying obscure item drops. But more importantly, for being the cheapest vendor in town for mana and health potions.

The problem was, the old geezer was notoriously difficult to buy from. He seemed to only sell to individuals he liked, or to people who were willing to get on his good side. In Beta, her character Col had spent weeks grinding out reputation quests for the old man, killing rats in the grain mill, laundering the sheets in Miss Ela’s inn, stocking vegetables at Miss Ola’s vendor stall. It was a complete grind fest, one mundane task after another, like doing all the starter quests in one long chain. And the prize was the opportunity to buy from Davis.

As the memories of the quest line came running back her face drooped. The idea she might have to repeat that marathon of tasks felt like a kick in the stomach.

“Oh darn it! Don’t you go and cry on me!” the old man said with a strong firm voice.

Confused, Alvia made eye contact with the old man trying to make sense of his last statement. “Stop, Stop! Stop giving me them puppy dog eyes!”

Grumbling, the man raised himself out of his rocking chair and gathered the mana and health potions. “Here, miss,” he said as he handed her the potions. “1 silver. Not a coin less! Don’t you think you can sucker me in with your smile and eyes, I’ll have you know I'm selling at cost!”

Alvia handed over the 1 silver coin which represented all her current assets, leaving her broke with this one exchange. “Damn unfair of you Miss, to use my one weakness against me,” Davis said with a huff.

Grinning from ear to ear, Alvia perked up at this last statement. “Weakness?”

Davis gave her a sheepish grin. “Well you see Miss, I have a weakness for cute girls. And to see one such as yourself in distress does my heart no good.”

Alvia’s eyes widened at that in semi horror. “Are you saying that you will sell to any girl that gives you the cry baby act?”

Shrugging he answered “I said it was a weakness, didn’t I.”

Grinding her teeth Alvia muttered “Tala you bitch...” Tala was the one that found out about this ornery crank of an old man that sold amazingly rare items. And she had pitched the idea to the guild to grind rep with him. But it never did make sense to Alvia how lazy Tala would spend the time rep grinding for some random old man. But now the pieces fell into place; Tala suckered him like Alvia just did. But intentionally, she was sure of it.

With a malicious grin plastered across her face, she indicated for Davis to lean in and whispered. “I want to warn you about an evil red-headed witch, she is wicked. Completely and utterly cruel. She once sold her comrades in arms that she fought and adventured with to an evil old slave driver of a man.” She neglected to mention that the evil slave driver was Davis himself. She continued to explain the horror of the quest chain she was forced to endure, making it sound like Tala was watching and laughing the entire time.

Davis nodded enthusiastically. “This Lady Tala indeed sounds like a witch of the vilest order!”

“Yes! She’s vile, super evil and vile!” Alvia nodded in agreement.

Davis continued “And this slavery is… to put poor people through such horror for the opportunity to be sold items... It is, well, wrong!” he crossed his arms with a disgusted look plastered across his face. Alvia averted her eyes as Davis started to bad mouth himself. But she also briefly wondered about the long term consequences.

“Well Miss, I shall keep my eyes out for this red-haired girl you spoke of.” He said it with such conviction she wondered momentarily if she might have pushed this a tad too far.

Grabbing the bag of potions she allowed her mind to reach for the mental trigger that would inventory the items for her. She heard a small chime from her bracelet and the bag disappeared. Giving one last wave to Davis she made her way through the crowded street of the open market filled with tables, stands, tents, and an ocean of people.

She had been walking for a few minutes, slowly weaving and dodging past players and NPC’s when she felt a peculiar sensation of something hard yet small whacking the top of her head. The object bounced near her feet and came to rest; it took her a breath to place the oddly shaped rock. Then she noticed how two of the sides were flat and uniform. It looked like a piece of broken brick. Alvia turned her head skywards toward the looming explorer tower.

A cloud of debris made up of dust and rock outlined a dark black shadow obscuring the noon sun. It took her brain a few moments to process that the black shadow was getting bigger, or closer, rather rapidly.

It took a heartbeat or two for her eyes to finally resolve the image into something recognizable. A girl was falling from the side of the tower. For a second she was afraid she'd have to put her newfound healing powers to use already, but somehow the girl twisted and actually pushed off of the wall and jumped across the street, where she swung from a flagpole, crossed the street again, bounced off of a blank wall, used a market stall awning for a trampoline and landed right next to her. Before anyone could react though, she had pulled up her hood and had disappeared into the crowd as if by magic.

Shaking her head in disbelief, Aliva couldn’t help but be impressed. To pull off such acrobatics at level one could only mean a display of actual skill. There was no class in the game that could offer a skill set this early on that would allow a person perform a stunt like that.

“Holy crap, someone else saw that girl, right?” She heard someone shout from behind her. “Yeah, I saw... That was gutsy. Who the hell free dives the Tower at level one?!”

A man wearing red and black armor pushed his way through the crowd. Armor that Alvia instantly recognized as the first tier of the Ragnarok PvP set. She also recognized the face of the avatar that was wearing it. “Brenuk!” she hissed in distaste under her breath. The last thing she wanted was to have his or any of his ilk’s attention.

She had wondered for a moment as she really looked at his face how anyone could have gotten the funds to buy such a player vs player set so early. It wasn’t the best set in the world, after all you could simply buy it from the Colosseum. But the cost should have been prohibitive for anyone to gather only a few hours after launch.

But this was Brenuk, guild leader of [The Exalted Path]. He probably just had all his lackey sycophantic idiots hand over their starting silver to him.

Brenuk pushed through the market crowd, forming an open circle around him. Two of his hangers on maintained the perimeter of his improvised stage.

A loud shout that Alvia recognized as the warrior skill [War Cry] rang through the street, silencing the crowd that now directed their eyes and ears to this new disturbance.

With a light cough as if clearing his throat Brenuk flashed a stunning smile to the crowd, making quick but definitive eye contact with everything within earshot.

“If someone knows the name, class, or contact information for that girl, please send a whisper to me, Brenuk, guild master for [The Exalted Path] or any of my associates. I will reward you for any information that pertains to that girl. His voice was a smooth inviting baritone, every word enunciated with care to project confidence and familiarity. For a moment Alvia was drawn in. His voice seems to communicate real interest and even care for the wellbeing of that girl. “Care,” she whispered in utter mirth then felt a sickly shudder as she realized how well Brenuk had pulled her in. He was a gifted orator and an even better confidence man and bullshit artist. He could strip you naked and shove you in the street and make you feel grateful that he was even talking to you.

Col, Alvia’s Beta character had a few run ins with the guy. He and his band of followers tried more than once to weasel into [Destiny Unfolding]. He tried to get himself slotted in as head tank when they were really starting to make a name for themselves. When that failed he started to poach back-bench players into [The Exalted Path] and instigated guild drama.

The whole thing really became a pain in the ass. But the event the really sparked Nathan’s hatred for the guy was when he start raid poaching. In Unfolding World raids could only be challenged by one party at a time. The moment a party entered into a Raid Fold, access to the raid would be locked until the party left.

But some classes like thieves had abilities that let them sneak into folds that were occupied. Brenuk would have a few of his guild thieves tail [Destiny Unfolding] on raid night. The moment the guild would enter the raid, the thieves would stealth in themselves and just watch the guild challenge the raid.

Learning endgame raids was time-consuming. Days could be invested in learning the mechanics of just one boss. And a full clear could take a week or more depending on luck, gear checking mechanics, or simply guild funds to pay for the logistics. Potions, food, the Arcane Hall to maintain a teleport gate, and the church to establish a resurrection altar nearby.

A lot of time and energy went into raiding and competition was fierce. So there was a lot of shock and anger when they would log in and see a Raid Fold that they had been working on for half a month was cleared by [The Exalted Path].

When a raid was cleared it could take up to a week to reset. Assuming it would reset. No one fully understood why, but sometimes when a raid was cleared the Fold would resolve; the story about the raid would become part of the world's narrative and a Raid Quest would be granted leading to a new raid.

The first time it was chalked up to bad luck; they didn’t camp the Fold 24 hours a day so they figured it was just a remarkable coincidence. When it happened three more times in a row things started to become heated. The guild had no clue how they were doing it until near the end of Beta when they managed to turn a member from [The Exalted Path] and learned they were spying on them and stealing their tactics for each of the raid bosses.

They managed to somewhat counter the problem by simply trying to camp each raid they worked on. It wasn’t perfect but they managed to keep their lead of the endgame race.

But the whole deal led to a lot of bad blood between Col and Brenuk.

Giving Brenuk one last long look before turning away she wondered if there was any way to maybe throw him off the trail of the girl. She gave it a quick run through her mind but ended up dismissing the thought out of mind. The assassin? thief? seemed to disappear into the crowd before the shock of the event had dissipated. So Brenuk’s little call for information was a longshot at best. If she went and tried to intercede she would just be exposing herself.

To be continued