Raven followed the two Mers through the forest path, leaving Oceangate behind them. As they walked Tiana had been guiding them through their interface, most of which he had already figured out other than the different windows he could open.

“There is the Guild, Inventory, Character, Spells, Skills, Summons, Party, Social, Trade, Achievements and Delve windows that you can open. All you have to do is call out each individual window’s name.” Tiana explained as they walked “Now onto the system itself, as any other MMORPG your character has a set of stats off which your health, mana, stamina, damage, magical power, damage reduction, general mobility, attack speed and cast speed are based off of. These are Strength, Agility, Constitution, Intelligence and Wisdom.”

Tiana glanced away from them to see where she was walking “Any questions on those? You both know what each stat stands for?”

“Yeah.” Raven responded alone, Discordia silently nodded.

“Then you get the basic concept, it is fairly simplified after all. If you want to know what each stat actually increases just check online, but that's it on those.” Tiana sighed “Hold on tight kids, it’s about to get crazy. Onto what the game calls Specializations. There are three kinds, for each of which you have a slot around your character name at the bottom left of your UI. Those three are Elemental Mastery, Weapon Mastery and Companion Mastery.”

Raven made mental notes as he silently listened, whilst Discordia to his left seemed slightly pale. Paler than before at least.

“If something confuses you feel free to stop me and ask...” Tiana added seeing Discordia’s expression, the newbie Mer nodded gratefully “Back to it then…Each Specialization caps out at level 30, your total level which is what is displayed for other players is the combination of all three of your current ACTIVE Specializations.”

“Active?” Asked Raven, hearing the emphasis.

“Your Specializations aren’t locked, you can switch them out through your Character window. More on that in a bit.” Tiana quickly explained before continuing “Anyway, let’s start with my favourite Spec. Elemental Mastery, it explains itself fairly well...at the start. It’s your mastery on the magically summoned Elements. As I explained before though, you need to unlock an element before you can use and train it.”

Tiana suddenly turned around to face them fully “Now you might ask…how do you unlock an element?” Raven and Discordia glanced at each other before turning back to a now grinning Tiana “Well first we need to unlock your mana…stand still.” Before they knew it, Tiana had raised both hands forwards and chanted “Minor Fireball.”

Out of the palms of both of her hands, two wisps of flame shot out and burst into the newbie’s chests, sending them flying back a few feet and landing them on their backs. Raven felt a red hot pain rush through his chest before quickly subsiding, followed by a strange sensation flowing through his entire body. It felt refreshing, relaxing almost as if he was in a sauna.

He slowly stood up, seeing Tiana had moved to help Discordia onto her feet. “What is…” she was going to ask before Tiana cut her off.

“That’s your mana. Weird right? Anyway it’s unlocked and ready for use now, just takes a bit of a jumpstart.” She shrugged whilst still grinning, turning away and continuing to walk down the forest path like nothing important had just occurred.

“Now that your mana is ready, how does that help you unlock an element? Well it’s one of the requirements. The next two requirements are that you’ll first need to find a monster with the mastery of the element you wish. Let’s say fire, I’d suggest Lesser Wyverns or Imps. You now have to slay said monster without damaging it’s monster core, which is what you need from them. Then extract said core without breaking it, which is the more difficult part believe it or not.” Her shoulder slumped down as if she was speaking from experience.

”If you get queasy and have your gore off though, the system will do it for you with a base success chance of 30%. Now you have your core, what the hell do you do with it? Simple, flow your mana through the core and you’ll gain the element. With a certain percent chance of failing...this is where your character colouring comes into play. Most cores have a 50% chance of failure, unless you have visual colouring that matches that core's element. Then it's only a 10% chance of failure. As for how you flow your mana…same way you cast spells. Will it, or even speak it at times and it will do so.” She raised her hands up to shoulder height and chanted “Lesser Water Bubble. Lesser Fireball.”

On her left hand a fist sized bubble of water bubbled into existence while on her right hand a flame twice the size of the previous ones burst alive. She closed her hands and the bubble fell apart then onto the ground while the flame simply snuffed out.

“Any questions?” Tiana the asked, glancing back at them once more.

There was none so she continued on “Alright, into the more complex part of Elemental Mastery.” Discordia’s expression paled further “There are six base elements. Fire, Water, Earth, Air, Light and Darkness. These are the ones you can gain through ‘Studying’ monster cores. But there are other elements. This is where elemental combinations come into play. If you master two elements, let’s say Fire and Earth. Then you’ll gain the ability to combine those two into a new element called Molten. For the full table I suggest looking it up on a forum somewhere…There's too many to memorize.”

“Wait so, there is six base elements that means there is a total of twenty-one elements?” Discordia suddenly asked.

“Oh you are lis-Ah-Yes, there is…I believe, twenty one elements.” Said Tiana, quickly correcting herself mid speech. “As for how to combine the two elements, simply summon up any two spells from either school and shove them into one another. Fair warning…some do explode on contact. So use low tier spells.”

“Now onto Weapon Mastery…the simplest Spec really. Each weapon category, Staff, Sword, Dagger etc. is a Weapon Mastery. For example.” She tapped something mid-air, looking through her inventory. A dagger appeared in her hand “Holding a dagger does nothing, but if I go to my character page and switch my current mastery which is Staff mastery to Dagger mastery…then check my Skills page. I’ll see dagger skills available instead of staff skills. Weapon Mastery contrary to Elemental Mastery, you have all the Specs unlocked from the get go. You just have to pick one, equip said weapon and use it to train it up.”

“And for the complex part of it?” Raven asked with a raised brow, already used to the developer’s mentality.

“Ahh…” Tiana chuckled ”Weapon Mastery has a thing called Imbuement. It’s where you imbue your equipped weapon with the element you have currently active. This can only be done with active Weapon Mastery for that weapon, you can’t just pick a hammer up off the ground and imbue it. Also, you will need to have capped out that Weapon’s mastery. When you imbue a weapon with say the Air element, all your basic attacks will do a fraction of your magic damage alongside your physical damage. While some of your weapon skills will turn entirely into magical damage, also losing or gaining different effects depending on the imbued element.”

Tiana and Raven stopped to glance at Discordia who had briefly stopped herself, she seemed to be typing away at a keyboard…probably taking notes Raven guessed.

“Anyway…” Tiana gestured for them to continue onwards “The third Spec is Companion Mastery. Now this is a tad bit more complicated.” Raven heard Discordia sigh in despair

“Each player has the ability once they’ve mastered at least one of both of the previous Specs, say Fire and Sword, to bind a companion to that Spec combination. To do so you’ll need to go to the summoning NPC in any of the main cities. Companions are your general pets and followers from most MMORPGs, they hold things for you, they buff you and they fight with you. Their AI starts out as complex as a general mob but as you level your mastery with that companion they start to listen better, fight better and just all around become stronger.”

“So,” Raven jumped in to ask after she seemed done explaining “Whatever Companion I might have for Fire and Sword, I’ll have a different one for Water and Sword or Fire and Bow?”

“Pretty much yeah, you’re getting it.” Tiana opened her inventory as she walked and took out a staff, pearly white with the design of silver roots growing around it’s length “My main mastery is Staff and a sub-element called Chaos. Created by combining Dark and Light base elements.” She stopped moving and turned around to face them once more, both Raven and Discordia cringed at what they expected to come.

“Come forth my Companion.” Tiana chanted, as black and violet energy sparked from one end of her staff then down to the other before entering the ground. The earth between them rose up, as a creature emerged from it.

Dark violet skin with black wings the seven-foot-tall Harpy stood alert, glancing about cautiously. It had wings for arms entirely with long blade-like claw ends, a fanged beak for a nose and mouth, hook-claw ridden bird legs, a short feathery tail and dark grey plate armour covering most of its body. But albeit the armour Raven could tell most of it was covered in smaller feathers.

“This is my Chaos-Staff companion, the Chaos Harpy.” Tiana explained while gesturing at the large and vicious looking creature. “Frighteningly terrific is it not?” Tiana asked in a somewhat jolly tone as she hugged onto the Harpy’s arm joyfully.

“F-Frightening for s-sure…” responded Discordia as she stared at the Harpy’s claws.

“Oh! Oh!” Tiana almost squealed with delight now “Want to know the best part?!” she opened a separate window and began fiddling with it “You can customize their clothing and equipment just like your own character!”

Suddenly the Harpy’s plate-armour phased out of existence and replacing it was a dangerously out of place maid’s outfit. Raven was at a complete loss for words for this one…

Discordia made a mental note to bleach her eyes later.

“What you don’t like?” Tiana asked with a raised brow and annoyed pout as she saw their pale expressions.

“Oh no it’s…” Discordia began before looking at Raven for support.

“Of a special kind of fre-” He began to thoughtlessly say before Discordia cut him off.

“Freakily special!! It’s just s-s-spe…cial…” Discordia ended as she glanced at the maid Harpy one more time.

Tiana shrugged and unsummoned her companion, it crumbling to ash before them after which the ash itself seemed to dissipate away into nothingness. “Well that’s that for Stats and Specs. Any questions?”

“Yeah…unrelated question though.” Raven responded, something had been on his mind for a few minutes now. Discordia right then glanced at him with pure horror, he wasn’t about to question the maid Harpy was he?...She really didn’t want to see it again…ever again.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

“Ask away.” Tiana offered.

Raven began glancing around the forest on either side of their path “Where are all the monsters? We’ve been walking for a while now and I haven’t seen a single one.”

Tiana grinned as he asked his question “So you’ve noticed.”

Discordia sighed with relief “Now that you mention it…”

“You’ll find this hard to believe but, finding monsters out here is extremely rare. And if you do, you do not want to fight them alone.” Tiana explained.

“Why?” Raven immediately asked.

“You saw the starting cutscene right?” Tiana asked, receiving a nod from both of them “Well the short answer is, you’ll find most monsters within Delves. The massive underground dungeons that lay beneath Eden. Any monster that you do find on the surface, are either World Bosses, Event Bosses or Elite packs. Things that take an entire guild to take down.”

“Oh…” was Discordia’s short reaction as she suddenly began to glance at every corner and bush around them.

“Where are these Delves exactly then?” Raven asked, undisturbed by the revelation of probable doom through the leisure walk.

“That.” Tiana began before turning about and continuing down the path “Is where we’re heading. You see access to Delves is restricted within main cities and unfortunately, Oceangate’s Delve entrance is underwater. So unless you’re a Mer or somehow able to breath under water, you cannot get to it.”

“Ah, so that’s why Cliffreach was under siege. I’m guessing guilds gain benefits for owning cities in more ways than one then?” Raven guessed.

“Bingo.” Responded Tiana with a finger gun flicking back at him “Guilds who own a city own a Delve entrance. From which players gather equipment AND resources. Most resources are used for crafting but some special ones have other uses. Enter the most sought-after resource in COTD, Power Fragments. It cannot be used in any sort of normal crafting, so what are they and what are they used for? Well, to explain that I’ll have to explain Delves first.”

Discordia reopened the note mod she had just closed moments ago.

Tiana took a deep breath before speaking once more “Delves are essentially, a dungeon. But each Delve is connected in some way to the others around it, and they are connected to others around them. So say you enter the Delve from Oceangate, you can then exit the Delve from say Cliffreach or Mistgrove. But the connections are very deep down and defended by Boss monsters. Boss corridors we call them.”

“These Boss corridors are the end of the first level of the Delve which you access freely through a main city. Within the corridor, you can either exit back into say Oceangate’s first level or another first level taking up into a different city. But also, at the very centre once the boss is defeated. A third path opens up taking deeper into the Delve, into the second level.” Tiana explained as suddenly the forest around them began to open up, revealing their arrival at another city.

“Ah right, welcome to Staghelm. The human main city.” Tiana quickly gestured at the white stone walls before them, almost as tall as the cliffs at the Avian city. She guided them through the main gate, it was the shape of a Stag’s head Raven noticed. All around them three to four storey buildings of white stone walls and wooden ceilings rose, forming the different districts and complexes. The path they travelled on also suddenly turned to paved white-stone while at set intervals on the side rose candle-lit lanterns held up by a silver post of metal.

Raven just now noticed that the game’s time was nearing later in the evening. The thick forest’s canopy had made it difficult to tell.

As they threaded this paved path, Tiana continued to explain “Where was I? Right Delve levels. We don’t know exactly how many levels there are to the Delve, so far we’ve only reached the fourth level if I’m being honest…And the developers tease many more below.”

“Only the fourth?” Raven asked in surprise, the game had been out for twelve years already…

“Well…we’ve got a fair excuse for that.” Tiana chuckled awkwardly “You see to even enter a Boss corridor, you need a minimum of thirty players and a certain amount of Power Fragments to make the door open. And the requirement of Fragments increases every level lower you go. As for obtaining Fragments…you need to defeat a certain amount of monsters within each floor of that level for that level’s roaming boss to spawn. You gain Fragments from defeating that roaming boss.”

“And I’m guessing guilds pay a pretty penny for these Fragments?” Raven quickly added.

“Righto, since defeating Corridor Bosses grants not only a hefty amount of unique crafting resources but also unique gear. Different for each boss.” Tiana continued “But it doesn’t end there. You see once a boss is defeated, the door from which the victor guild came from remains open for an entire week. At the same time the opposite door is locked and cannot be opened for an entire week.”

“Victor?” Raven caught on to her wording.

“Mhm“ Tiana hummed in what sounded like delight ”Boss fights aren’t just a PVE event but a PVX event. Opposing guilds from neighbouring cities will try to match time and fight us off while we raid the boss, trying to take it for their own.”

“Why? Can’t they just use a different corridor?” Discordia asked in confusion.

“Because then they’d just be picking a different guild to fight off against.” Raven was the one to answer, glancing over at Tiana for confirmation.

“Exactly, and everybody wants control over unique loot in this game. So helping each other out is also out of the question.” She said whilst shrugging “An-”

“We’ll take it from here.” Suddenly spoke a harsh male voice from ahead of them, players and NPCs that had been walking about them suddenly cleared out of the way. Revealing two human warriors wearing what Raven visually identified as high tier equipment.

He immediately realised the problem after glancing at Tiana and their player info.

{SNEKK} Tiana [Level 72] (Mentor)

{Cerberus} Thane [Level 76] (Mentor)

{Cerberus} Ceres [Level 74] (Mentor)

These two were of the guild that owned Staghelm, and Tiana was an opposing guildmember.

“Ah, guess this is as far as I go.” Tiana chuckled evilly as she stepped back with arms raised.

The female player, Ceres snorted at her in annoyance “You’re supposed to wait for us at the damn gate.”

Tiana chuckled some more “I am?...” before suddenly disappearing completely.

Ceres made a sound that resembled the combination of a scream and frustrated growl…before also disappearing.

Thane simply sighed “Not again…”

Discordia was glancing between him and Raven, seemingly expecting an explanation. “Competition.” Raven said simply, chuckling at this scene.

“Yeah…Raven and Discordia? Heh, follow me.” Thane, the full-plate armour wearing warrior told them “She…” he sighed in frustration “They, always try to pull this shit.”

“Sounds like a pain.” Raven snorted in amusement.

“Oh it is, usually we’d kill em before they even got sight of the gate but…Gah rules are rules.” Thane scratched his helmet in frustration.

“Oh…Oohhh” Discordia seemingly realised what had just happened “Why weren’t you watching the gate then?”

“Which one of the six?” Thane asked her back “We were trust me, she just took a different gate than we planned for…”

“Wait, why did she even bolt then?” Discordia then asked, telling them both she hadn’t realised the entire problem yet.

“Because,” Raven began patiently “she wants a peak at this town’s Fragment progress.”

“Yeap, got a smart one here.” Thane chuckled, seemingly in relief “And that she’d lose all the experience she’s gained since levelling up her Specs if we killed her.”

“Damn, that harsh?” Raven asked “Player kills only or?”

“Environmental too. Died to a mob or fall damage? Still the same penalty I’m afraid.” Thane waved him off, seemingly bothered by the prospect himself “Anyway, I’m Thane of Cerberus. Well you hopefully know that already…” he glanced over at Discordia briefly “Do me a favour, open your menu real quick…” he suddenly asked her.

“Uhm…sure?” Discordia complied, albeit gone unseen by the rest.

“Alright just making sure…we had people like that once before…” Thane smiled apologetically before continuing onwards, Discordia just seemed more confused that before. “Anywa-”

Suddenly from around the corner ahead an explosion of spoke filled the street, followed by a massive wave of water over which Tiana was riding as her Harpy flew behind her. Further behind by a brief moment was Ceres, leaping from building to building while taking shots with her long rifle. Electricity surging out with each shot fired.

“Get back here!” Ceres shouted out while taking a shot at Tiana’s harpy, who simply took the charge of electricity, screeching in pain momentarily before going back to following her master like nothing had happened.

“Sorry hun but I got a train to catch!” Tiana teased as her wave picked up speed.

Thane, Raven, Discordia and many other players looked down the street after them, some amused others utterly confused. Raven turned to Thane “Shouldn’t you…be helping?”

Thane shrugged “Easier to get inside that it is to get out, the other available members will join in on hunting her in a bit and probably chase her around the city for a while until she runs out of mana. As long as she isn’t allowed inside the Delve, she can’t see shit.” He then gestured up ahead “And I don’t think she’s getting anywhere near that.”

Thane was pointing at a large circular building up ahead where dozens of armed human guards were watching the fight attentively while also keeping caution at their surroundings. As they approached Raven glanced at the words above their heads.

{Cerberus} Delve Guard [Level 60] (NPC)

Raven whistled at the security, all high-level guards. And NPCs for that, so they didn’t take any breaks and if they did they had a perfect shift. “I see your point.”

“She could technically rush through them but I doubt that mage has the skill set to do th-” Thane began explaining, when suddenly a rushing shadow shot past them

“You think too lightly of me hun.” Tiana whispered as she shot past them, riding in the back of her Harpy as the large winged beast came out of it’s dive bomb and flew forwards at great speed.

Thane sighed once more “Fool, you won’t make it an inch past them…”

Raven still watched attentively, as the Harpy reached within combat range of the two dozen NPCs. Each one held their hands forwards as weapons of every kind appeared within her hold, each one turning to face the incoming hostile.

Tiana grinned as she held onto her Harpy with one hand, chanting into her staff which she held in the other “Twist and turn, form out of the blue and reap. Chaos tendrils!” She waved her staff forwards and a jungle of violet glowing roots burst outwards, blacking out the sky for the NPCs.

“She might actually make it you kn-” Raven commented before Thane cut him off.

“Nope, not a chance.” Thane quickly added as he also watched in amusement.

Suddenly long slashes of light tore through the roots, tearing the summoned magic apart. Tiana’s Harpy swerved to evade the blades of magic and flew through the torn roots, aiming for the Delve entrance ahead.

Before being forced to parry with its claws as two swordsmen leapt up at them, slashing their two-handed blades upwards. Tiana pulled herself over the Harpy and leapt off as it faced against the warriors, putting her staff beneath her she quickly chanted “Witch’s Broom!”

The back end of her staff exploded outwards with violet energy, propelling her forwards and closer to the entrance. She evaded projectiles of sparkling energy before a third warrior suddenly appeared before her, this one wielding a large shield and mace. Tiana cringed and closed her eyes, as the warrior slammed his shield into her body throwing her off her staff.

Tiana flew backwards, towards one ranger NPC holding up a large crossbow with two hands and aimed directly at her back. She tried to aim her arms back and chant “Chaos Bar-” but the ranger was faster “Lightbolt” he chanted and out of his crossbow shot out an undiscernibly fast bolt of light which pierced through Tiana’s right shoulder.

Blood and flesh splattered around her as the bolt tore through her skin and shattered her bones, severing her right arm entirely off her body. She spun about from the force of contact while mid-air, hitting the ground beneath hard with a splatter of blood and face down.

But Tiana wasn’t through yet, pulling herself up as she cringed through the slight and passing pain of having her arm blasted off. “Haha…” she chuckled while quickly opening her inventory and pulling out a second less impressive looking staff, holding it with one hand she chanted “Chaos Convergence.”

The two warriors who had engaged her Harpy had redirected themselves after Tiana, ignoring the companion and focusing on the player. So she was surrounded as her staff shone a bright violet, and her Harpy was left undeterred as it dove down into the Delve entrance.

Thane’s eyes widened with understanding as a spear appeared in his hands “Wind Rush!” he quickly chanted and both Raven and Discordia were thrown back as he suddenly blasted forwards with great force.

But it was too late, Tiana had already gathered her spell “Chaos Switch” she chanted right as several bolts of energy following after Thane’s held ahead spear rushed towards her. Each one colliding at once, exploding into a screen of magical smoke.

Raven pulled himself up from the ground, holding onto the back of his head with one hand as he rubbed the pain from being abruptly thrown back and to the floor. He immediately looked onto the scene, as the smoke cleared out revealing a battered, beaten and stabbed through Harpy wearing a maid’s outfit.

Thane pulled his decorated metal spear out of the winged beast, sending blood spurting out of the wound. “Damn she…” he grimaced in annoyance while looking at the Harpy, as its body began to very slowly dissipate into sparks of violet light.