An hour had passed since Old Man died. He went by that name because he thought it was funny, at least that was what the others had told me.

“I still can’t believe he’s really dead,” Marsa, the pink haired girl had said while sitting in a seat at the table Cardinal, Starch, and I were sitting at. Cardinal had covered the body in a blanket to respect the old man’s memory.

Cardinal’s ears lowered a little, “This shit is ass,” He said while looking downward. His ears repositioned and he looked up slightly, “But even if it sucks, we still have stuff to do!” He turned to Marsa, “Old Man told us to find answers and survive, so that’s what we need to do.”

Marsa stopped herself from being on the brink of tears and nodded with us. “Y-yeah.”

Starch pondered before speaking, “So, age really does matter?”

“Pfft, ha!” I said, I was bad at hiding my enjoyment of comedy in tense or dreadful situations

“That’s one way to word it!” Cardinal said.

“It’s not funny you guys, Old Man is dead!” Marsa said with a more upset tone than before. “But, I’m pretty sure he would want us to laugh, so at least you’ll be making him happy doing that…”

“Yeah,” Cardinal and Starch said while nodding in agreement.

I was curious as to how the group became friends with Old Man, they all seemed to care about him, even if they didn’t know what all to make of this situation. “Say, how did everyone meet Old Man?” I asked.

“He was one of the first people to make this place,” Cardinal started while looking around the Safe Haven. “He saved me with his magic when a psycho player tried to kill me, the first day of teleports was utter hell.”

Marsa nodded and added on, “Yeah, I had to heal Starch because he almost died to a guard NPC he thought was an updated CPU,”

Startch chuckled, “Yeah, those were the days, well it was nearly a week ago, but still counts. We had our work tied up for us, Old Man just made it easier to deal with. He was really knowledgeable on things, like potions and the such.”

“Sounds like he had a really good impact on you guys,” I said while observing the joy in their memories of Old Man, it was more than clear to me he would want them to pursue their dreams.

Everyone nodded and I continued, “He said to find answers and survive, the only way we do that is by having a mutual understanding,” I started. I turned to Starch and Marsa, “I’ll admit, before things happened, I was a massive lore skipper. I even skipped the tutorial at the start of GOL, my Bunny Beastkin account was purely me spamming archer skills with no Idea what I was doing.”

My statement was followed by Marsa’s chuckle, “You can’t be hard on yourself for that stuff now, Veronica. None of us had any idea we would end up inside the world of Lacritia, now we just need to improve our understanding to see our goals through.”

Cardinal played with his dagger. “Agreed.”

Starch nodded, “Yep, and that starts with you learning the basics of that. You said you had another account, so I’m assuming this wasn’t the main one?”

I nodded, “It’s my brother’s account, I logged on to prank him by changing his character’s gender, then the teleport stuff happened,” My memory of the starting events were as clear as ever. I never forgot that swirling blue vortex of doom.

“As an Undead Necromancer, you take extra light damage, making this DLC your worst possible course of events,” Starch started.

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“Understatement,” Cardinal added.

Starch continued, “I don’t know that much about the Necromancer line move set, but it looks like you only have the Skeletal Summon move unlocked.”

I Nodded.

“Well, stick to using them. They do physical damage instead of dark, slightly helpful towards light enemies.”

Marsa clapped before adding on, “Yeah!”

She continued, “We don’t really know how class progression works in this world, but I remember that in lore, class progression is done by following the paths and learning skills, the skills could be learned from NPCs, probably a little different now.”

Cardinal finished twirling his dagger and put it in his pocket, “Before any thing, you need to get some actual armor and weapons.”

Cardinal’s words hit me, I had been wearing rags and a dirty brown coat this entire time. “Those still matter?” I asked.

Cardinal laughed, “Of course they do! The buffs from the game carry on in the armor of this world, you having none makes you a sitting duck!”

I guess I had fucked myself over by removing Casey’s armor for the prank. Funny how that works. “Well, where do I get armor?”

“Marsa pointed to a corner of the Safe Haven, “We have a pile of clothes over there, you’ll probably find something that buffs mana usage.”

I got up and went to the corner, grabbed a pair of robes to put on but stopped. I saw something shining, it was silver armor with a light enchant! I hurried to put it on, but suddenly fell to the ground with a large thud.

“That’s priceless!” Cardinal said while laughing loudly.

“Yeah, that’s pretty funny!” Marsa said while her and Starch joined in on the laugher at my utter dismay.

I took the armor off while on the floor, before getting up, “What did that happen?” I asked.

“You aren’t high enough level to use it, I’m assuming,” Starch said while moving his finger to his chin.

“Huh?” I responded.

Cardinal added while scratching his right ear, “Levels still matter, although… We don’t really know how to keep track of them now.”

I remembered that Casey’s account was level 46, way off from the level 250 cap. This was going to be a long and miserable progression journey.

“Cardinal, you said that the first day was chaotic, can you extend on that?” I had the courage to pursue the answer.

Cardinal’s demeanor got slightly grim, “To sum it up, people do crazy shit when they think there aren’t any consequences. You could say that’s why most people who teleported in the first day are dead.”

“Pretty much,” Starch added while him and Marsa nodded.

“So what’s the plan now?” I asked the group.

Cardinal stood up, “You get robes you can actually wear from the pile, a better wand, and I fill these two in on what Millie said,” He turned to Marsa and Starch.

I nodded, “Got it.”

I went back to the corner where the clothes were and put on a some robes that had a small green aura to them after fitting, probably the signifier it was common clothing.

After getting situated, I went back to the table and sat down. Cardinal had just finished explaining the information Millie shared to the others.

“Looking fly!” Cardinal said jokingly. I laughed a little.

“I second that notion!” Marsa said.

“Jokes aside, we need to discuss what to do with this information,” Starch started with his finger on his lip, “How are we going to find enough people to aid us?”

“Wistgardia?” I asked.

Marsa moved her staff to the side of the table, “They would be more than happy to help kill Saint Excella, although, how do we even get there?”

Cardinal spoke up, “Easy, a group of us escape the city, another stays here to build connections, we regroup in a few days or so, and then we take on Excella!” He clutched his hand with excitement.

“That’s a prestigious plan,” I started. “But how do we escape the city?” I asked.

“Diversions!” Cardinal said even more excited.

“What kind?” Marsa asked.

“I’ll figure that part out later, but you would be useful! You would blend right in with a division of the Holy Knights!”

“Probably, but I still don’t like how this plan is based on things that we aren’t sure of,” Mars arebuttaled.

“Yeah, but I still like our odds with what Card said,” Starch said. “I guess that just leaves the tie-breaker to Veronica,” He finished as he turned to me.

“I’m with Cardinal on this,” I said as I stood up. ‘We won’t know if this’ll work until we do it, so let’s do it!”

“Guess I’m outnumbered on this one,” Marsa said while giggling.

“Seems like it!” Cardinal said. “There’s no time to waste, let’s prepare now!”

We all nodded.

“Starch, you come with me to ‘borrow’ some of the things we need, Marsa, you go to the Holy Knights headquarters and do some infiltration, Veronica just needs to wait.

With those orders, everyone left to do their assignment, leaving only me in the Safe haven with the other players who were engaging in their own activities.

I went to the corner and searched a chest that had a Mirror. I reached for the Mirror and tapped the screen, curious to see if anything similar to what happened before would reoccur.

After a few minutes of awkward silence, Nothing happened.

“Maybe, this?” I tapped the upper part of the mirror’s screen.

Nothing happened again.

I put the mirror down and went back to search the chest, I found a wooden want with silver ends.

“Jackpot!” I said out loud while putting it into my robe’s pocket.

‘I’m all set now.”