Haru: Acolyte, Level 10/20
Optifex: Initiate, Level 10/20
Haru sat down at the dining table situated next to the picture frame window overlooking the harbor. Across from her Opti ate a giant bone-in roast beef with mana milk to drink.
“I didn’t realize how hungry I’d gotten.” Opti took oversized bites of the meat. He pointed at Haru’s empty plate. “You’re not hungry?”
She shook her head. “My HP and mana are full.”
“Oh, right.” Opti took another bite. “You don’t get hungry like me.” He spoke with a full mouth.
Haru tapped her fingers together, staring out the window, at a loss for words as how to broach the subject on why the demon Irae would want to consume her companion. As she played out potential conversations in her mind, a raven glided in from above and landed on the marble railing opposite the sidewalk just outside the window. As there weren’t any birds that lingered around town, that could only be Oracle in her bird form.
Feeling pressured by the sage’s sudden appearance, Haru decided that straightforwardness would be the best procedure. “So, outside the game, what do you usually do?”
Opti stopped mid-chew and his brow dipped. He blinked rapidly. “Like for work?”
“W—well I suppose, or anything really. Like for fun, or …something?” Haru scratched her head.
Pain fell across Opti’s face. “I—I uh…”
Haru shifted in her seat, not expecting this to be an unpleasant discussion from the onset. “Well, when we met in the cave some time ago—”
Opti nodded, continuing to chew on the beef.
“And you tried to log out but couldn’t, right?” Haru mimicked his gesture attempting to press the logout button repeatedly.
After tearing another chunk from the bone, Opti nodded once more.
“What would have happened if you could log out?” Haru started to grow concerned.
Opti sat and stared for a long time, slowly munching his meal. “Well, I would go back to living life.” He spoke with a measured pace, his voice shaky.
“You don’t remember what happens after logging out?” Haru folded her hands.
“I do!” Opti took a big bite of his roast beef. “It’s just a complicated question.”
Haru thought back to what would happen after she finished an encounter. She’d fly out of the instance and return home, usually. Or go to HomeRoom if that’s what was needed. She kept a routine before this whole mess started. “What usually occurred right after pressing the button?”
Opti sighed and squinted, staring at the table. “Well, I’d… either stand up or just browse the web.”
Hoping to encourage him, Haru nodded.
“And…” Opti exhaled hard. “…no, or—” He bit off a chunk of meat and chewed aggressively. Then his expression lightened, his eyes widened, and his gnawing changed to dainty chewing. “I would go back to making…” He groaned, searching the surface of the dining table. “…something.”
“So, you would make something after you logged off?” Haru tilted her head.
“Well, not always. Sometimes I would get up and go off to do something else. But almost always, at least, I was trying to create this thing.” Opti pointed at Haru with the beef bone in his hand. “But I don’t remember what it was for some reason.”
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Haru opened her mouth to speak but Opti interrupted.
“It was important though. That’s why it bothers me that I can’t remember.” Opti took another bite of food and grumbled.
Maybe it was what Opti was making that the demon wanted. Perhaps it was control over it, or maybe to finish it? It started to make sense why Irae was after Opti, but the exact purpose of this pursuit still wasn’t clear. Haru decided to let her friend finish eating in peace. The last thing she needed to do was to help the demon by frustrating Opti.
“We should go to the job master and turn in the orbs.” Haru smiled.
Opti picked clean the bone and dropped it on his plate. “Oh yeah, that’s right. We have those things now, don’t we? That’s a good idea.”
Haru turned and looked to where Oracle, as a raven, landed and found she had already flew off, toward the harbor. Perhaps she thought that Haru was going to have figured it all out in one shot, but dealing with matters like this was something new. It seemed wrong to just interrogate a friend, especially when it seemed to bother him when talking about such matters.
“Shall we get going?” Opti said.
The initiate’s words startled Haru from her thoughts. “That sounds good.” She stood up and walked out of the inn, onto the cobblestone road overlooking the bay.
They both walked to the elevator inside the needle, which was in the middle of town not far from the auction house. A horde of other players awaited the grand lift, the shaft which was embedded within the huge central structure that reached far into the sky. Upon the arch above the entryway was a gem that glowed red. The hue changed to yellow, and the mass of players surged forward toward the still-closed elevator door.
Then, it turned green. The wall of the needle lowered and revealed the elevator platform waiting. Haru and Opti were swept up in the tsunami of people hurling themselves onto the lift, while another tidal wave rocketed outwards onto the street. The two, along with the flock of players, settled onto the gargantuan platform. Then it began to ascend.
“Aw man, it’s going up. This is going to take forever.” Opti sighed.
Haru watched through the glass slit in the center of the shaft. The whole landscape could be seen, not just the Plentiful Glade, but all of the high-level areas beyond. You could see almost all the way to the northern end of the continent, a gradient from the greens of the forest to the reds of Desolace, to the purples of the far northern glaciers. The slit suddenly ended, leaving Haru staring at a wall.
Then the elevator stopped, and the door slid open. Revealed was a pearlescent room with a cupola granting a view of the landscape. A small platform near the sightseeing area had an NPC standing there with many players surrounding her. She was in gold armor with a red cape.
“I wonder what this is for.” Haru thought out loud.
“Oh, this is how you unlock the end game raids. It’s for a quest.” Opti spoke matter-of-factly.
Haru looked at him with a cocked eyebrow. “How do you know that? Have you been here before?”
Opti blinked. “Maybe a long time ago. Something about our discussion at lunch made me remember.”
“Do you know why?” Haru watched the door close in front of them.
The elevator began to descend.
Opti shook his head. “I don’t. Maybe I just overheard it and thought I knew for sure, never mind.” He shuffled, clearly uncomfortable.
While it was possible for him to have overheard it, intuition said otherwise. Oracle’s suggestion was more salient than Haru could have imagined, and she was certain that parts of his memory was beginning to return. She just needed to figure out how to jolt him even more.
The elevator finally descended to the Under Avenue. It was a close-quarters place on the underside of the city. It contained the river that flowed from the forest out to the sea. Many small rooms and structures were etched into the otherwise marble and stone foundation. One of which, what was likely the largest, was the dojo where all of the job master NPCs resided.
The core job masters for Legionnaire, Initiate, Acolyte, Footpad, and Apprentice stood in a semicircle near the DPS training dummies for testing damage output. They were all spread out on the far side of the room.
Haru remembered how the job system worked but wanted to test her theory even more. “I see the tier 1 job masters, but where are the other tiers?” She feigned to think out loud.
Like a machine prompted to answer on demand, Opti spoke. “Oh, the other tiers you have to go find after level 30. You need multiple jobs at the prerequisite levels before they’ll talk to you. For instance, you could get the Priest class by getting Acolyte to 30 and Mage to 15. But if you got Legionnaire to 40, you could unlock Paladin with both Acolyte and Legionnaire.”
Haru was intrigued by Opti’s sudden deep knowledge of the game. She stroked her chin as if she had a long beard. “What about Arcane Fencer?”
“That one you need to unlock the second-tier job Mage, which needs Apprentice to 30 and Acolyte to 15. Mage needs to be at level 30. Then you need Priest to level 30 as well.” Opti nodded.
Haru began to suspect that Opti had some kind of deeper involvement with the game. While it was possible he was just a wayward player trapped here, his knowledge rivaled Emu’s, and the fact that he could recall on demand meant it probably wasn’t something he just somehow looked up randomly.
Haru suddenly had a deep need to force him to recite more game trivia. And she had an idea on just how to do it.