Vol. 5 - Journey - Chapter 42 (Patreon)

Once his computer terminal was fully booted up, Darren checked his messages. Tamara, his lore obsessed friend, had gotten his message and promised to look into the history of the Garou. Thomas sent a reply and retold the story he'd heard from Snowlily's mother again. Just in case he forgot to mention anything the first time he told Tamara. His other messages mostly consisted of spam and were summarily deleted.

With his messages checked he went to a forum. Not the public forums for AoG, but a private invitation-only forum. This particular forum was filled with nothing but people who could be considered... eccentric. All of them were professionals in one aspect or another and were only allowed on the forum by invitation from an existing member. Every member was top-of-the-line in one field or another. The whole forum was dedicated to getting people discussing various games and working together to common goals. PvP obsessed fighters could connect with armorsmiths and get custom armor made. Armorsmiths could get in touch with gatherers to get the material they needed and so on. It was a large community to work together. Darren led the section dedicated to crafting and was head of the 'Blacksmiths Union' on the forum.

His best skills lay in blacksmithing, though he was passable in other areas he wasn't enough of an expert to lead those 'unions' on this forum. Every different profession was led by someone who specialized in that field and Darren was the over-all 'boss'. Not that he actually had the right to boss anyone around or anything. He was just in charge of keeping things in line, a job he'd been really neglecting from the beginning. Since everyone on this forum was a professional he didn't really need to boss them around so he felt the position was more about him being a figurehead than anything else.

It'd been sufficient time within AoG for the blacksmiths to experiment so he was heading into their sub-forum to take a look at their discoveries and share some of his own. In this way everyone would become better at what they loved to do. It was nice that here, on this forum, sides in conflict, good versus evil, none of it mattered. It was all about the craftsmanship and sharing of knowledge between professionals. He browsed around the topics posted and found that the way he'd been crafting had been attempted by others with similar results. The most popular topic covered the 'proper' way to craft as a blacksmith and left a smile on his face. The topic was only a few days old, which meant he wasn't all that far behind the other professionals in that regard. It also explained why he wasn't the first person to craft an Uncommon grade item. Someone had done it about a week before he had, within the game.

That's alright, with his new knowledge and the knowledge of the other people on the forum he was confident he would be the first to make an item above the rank of Uncommon. Still, he wasn't greedy and made a new post to share his discoveries with his fellow blacksmiths. He pointed out how to make psuedo-magical items with basic materials and suggested that any craftsman who could find someone with the 'Transmutation' ability should make good friends with the wielder of 'Transmutation'. He didn't give specifics on what the 'Transmutation' innate ability could do, but giving out the hint would get some people to explore. It would be a big help if he wasn't the only player out there making 'godly' tier materials out of scrap iron.

After sharing some of the information he had on crafting he switched to the exploration sub-forum. He wanted to see if any of his buddies where near where he was heading. He left a message letting the players on the forum know that he was currently on his way to the country of Solvikia and would be making landfall at the port city of Botstrand in about two weeks. It would be nice to be able to do some business with some of the folks on the forum while he was near them. Until faster travel options had been unlocked, discovered, or made, this was the best way to meet up.

He browsed around a bit before leaving the private forum and heading to the public forums of AoG. With the thousands upon thousands of posts on the forum, it would be annoying to try and filter out what he was looking for. Still, with some subtle use of the search filter, he found some interesting topics that caught his attention.

Race change reversion!
To any players who have forcibly had their races changed due to circumstances beyond their control. It is possible to revert back to the human race!
Doing so is not easy, but it is possible. To do so you need to begin a long questline in the Kingdom of Boskaria. Head to the capitol and look for a hermit named 'Sevis Thront' and speak with him. He'll give you the steps necessary to revert you back to human from your current race. It seems that the questline varies from race to race but the end result is a potion that reverts you back to human.
WARNING! The difficulty and length of this questline depends on your race. There can also be side effects from losing the bonuses your race previously provided. DO THIS AT YOUR OWN RISK!

There was no way to confirm if the post was legitimate or not but it provided Darren with a possible out if his Nephilim race became a burden. When he'd first gotten it he'd been rather peeved by it. Now though, he didn't really mind it. As long as no one found out it didn't prove to be an issue and gave him a handy set of wings. Though he wished he could use them a bit more often. He also needed to find a way to learn how to use the Holy half of his race. Healing magic would always be helpful and could even make him a lot tougher in a fight. Self-recovery and regeneration were always helpful tools to have!

He wasn't planning to get reverted back to a human for the time being. Being a Nephilim gave him too many advantages. Once he was stronger he would be able to use it in the open and use his access to Holy and Unholy magic to make matching weapons and armor. There might not even be another way to gain access to both classes of restricted magic. If he thought about it from a production standpoint, Nephilim was a rather perfect race for him. With it, he had access to every possible form of magic for his work. So for now, reverting it was out of the question.

He browsed around some more until another topic caught his attention.

ATTENTION PLAYER WITH THE GUN!
I know you don't want to reveal who you are but I really want to know how you made a working gun! I've tried to make my own gun, even making a simplified single-shot weapon like a flintlock. But all my attempts failed miserably! If you see this message send me a privat emessage! I have a lot fo questions I want to ask so please get in touch with me!

Darren looked over the message and the dozens of replies from other people asking for the same thing. Reading through the thread he found that anyone who attempted to make a gun, ended up failing miserably. No matter what materials they used or how they designed the gun it would explode the first time the trigger was pulled. One player even attempted to make a toy airgun and said it exploded with more force than it should have contained. Reading over all of the discussion he came to a simple conclusion. No one but him could make working guns! He suspected that it had to do wit the inheritance. If that was the case then only people with the specific inheritance from Hekrin could make guns. If he could develop them without them becoming soulbound he would have a total monopoly!

Naturally, he did not post any replies or send any private messages. He hadn't even told his friends that he was the one that could make guns. There was no way he was going to reveal that to a bunch of random strangers! Following that post, he spent the next few hours gathering information. He specifically looked for posts relating to the country he was heading to and how things worked there. After the warning he had received before leaving Reykhoten, he wasn't going to go into this country blind.

What he learned could be summarized pretty easily. Solvikia was one of the few countries where nobility wasn't determined by strength and dedication to the country. Instead, they were hereditary like classic nobility. They saw themselves as 'above' the people and did whatever they wanted. All the players that were in the country, or had visited it, described the nobles as corrupt, incompetent, and arrogant. The only thing keeping the nobles in power was money. They hired powerful people to enforce their rule. If you were a noble or the retainer of a noble in Solvikia then you were above the law and could do anything you wished.

Add on to the corruption that the nobles were racists and human supremacists and you had the recipe for a country that Darren already hated. If he had a choice he wouldn't ever head to a place like that. It made him wonder, though, why would Hekrin's master, a dwarf, or his fellow dwarves, have a city within the borders of a country that hated them? He had nothing to go on and it didn't look like the forums had any idea there was even a dwarf city in the country, to begin with. Maybe it was hidden? There could be other reasons as well, such as a treaty. Whatever the reason was he would find out when he got there. What he knew for certain was that he needed to get through the country fast. The longer he was there the more likely he was to get into trouble.

Darren could be said to have some respect for the nobles back in Reykhoten since they were essentially elected or it was a meritocracy. He wasn't sure which it counted as more and didn't care enough to dig into it. The nobles in Solvikia though... Those kinds of nobles annoyed him on a primal level and it would be a miracle if he didn't beat or kill the first noble to annoy him.

He leaned back in his chair and relaxed while browsing a bit longer. The forums contained some information but it was all over the place and it was hard to find anything that was professional or informative. Even the posts dedicated to crafting were filled with supposition and guesswork. Even the occasional flat-out lie. After looking through enough posts to grow bored, he logged off of the forums and left his game room. It was getting dark so he ordered himself some pizza and had it delivered to his home. The next time he logged out he would go grocery shopping. From now on he would log out every eight game-days or forty-eight real-world hours.

While waiting for his pizza to arrive he sat on his couch and watched some of his recorded shows. Like many geeks, he had a penchant for watching anime, superheroes, and action flicks. While he'd been inside of the game he'd recorded everything he was interested in watching. He watched some stuff while chowing down on his pepperoni and mushroom pizza with extra cheese. He enjoyed his favorite pizza from his favorite pizza place while watching his favorite television shows. All in all, it was a wonderfully relaxing time. As evening approached he'd finished everything he wanted to do. It was time to log back in.

Darren stripped down to his boxers and climbed into the gaming pod with a smile. He'd have to do some cooking once he got inside to make things up to Snowlily. He'd been logged out for about eight hours, meaning it had been over thirty hours since he'd left her alone inside of their cabin. The preserved foods were edible, but not very tasty. He smiled as the lid to his pod closed.

Thomas opened his eyes and looked around his cabin. Snowlily, laying down next to him perked up and looked at him while her tail wagged. He stroked her head and looked over at the supplies he'd left out. Seeing them he paused and then frowned. He looked at Snowlily while he was still frowning, "Why didn't you eat anything while I was gone?"

Snowlily tilted her head in confusion. She looked at the food laid out for her and then back at Thomas with her head tilted to the side. She looked as confused as he felt. He stroked her head as he asked, "I've been... asleep for over twenty-four hours. Didn't you get hungry while I was asleep?"

She continued to look confused. He found this a bit odd so he asked, "Did you not get hungry while I was asleep?"

She shook her head, "Did you just sleep too?"

She nodded. He crossed his arms over his chest and pondered. Did she just sleep while he 'slept'? It was too early to tell but he had a suspicion that it was like she was 'paused' while he logged out. If that was the case it was a load off of his mind. If he ever had to log out for an extended period of time he just had to make sure he did it in a safe place and she would be safe from starvation and dehydration. He hoped that was the case.