Allen scanned his display map again and compared it to the landscape below, "I don't understand this map" sending a 'message' spell to Jeremy when he returned from his offlife break.

"What happened?" Came the 'message' reply.

"The map doesnt match the trails", a good thing 'message' spells didn't convey frustration, "its like half of them are at an angle instead of being parallel like they are in reality"

Leaning over the edge and trying to see what the dragon was talming about Jeremy found out he was really afraid of heights when he came to after Allen landed and layed him on the ground.

"Your blockers initiated an emergency blackout", the dragon rumble while Jeremy just wanted to ennoy the happines of solid ground holding him, "I think its interesting how the system forces the character features on the Player even when he himself wouldn't react to the same stimulae", the soft rumble helping him snuggle deeper into the ground, "if you were really afraid of heights the system would block the shock of exposure and send you offline for treatment", explaining further nonsense things, "I find it correlates perfectly with my own experience and cant help but wonder what other hidden mechanisms are actually making me do the things I do", going on and on, "do I really enjoy math and banking or is it the system telling me I feel pleasure doing them?"

"Does it matter?" Jeremy finally asked.

"If I don't know about a weakness and someone else finds out about it" the dragon sounded worried, "like the Kobolds with the gold lust", which meant nothing to Jeremy, "it could turn a battle into a farce".

"Where are we going from here?" Jeremy finally aske, "I've never been so deep in the Golliaths' pass before", adding, "the only one I ever heard of that did was the first Afriat and he was a member of an expedition that mapped the pass up to where it joins the other mountain", ending with a grim note, "only eight people managed to flee the storm giants and bring back their maps"

"Giants are natural enemies for dragons", Allen still showed the attention span of a dragon was only given to treasure and combat, "I should test my new armor without revealing it to the pirates"

"Giants are very crafty", Jeremy warned, "if you use a spell on them you might have it turned against you by the end of the fight", then adding, "and when we tried to use cavalry to push them back", shuddering at the tale, "by the end of the war they were riding monstrous nightmares and devastated our ranks", ending with another grim note, "only our border castles managed to hold them back and now they have their own forts guarding the pass against us" neglecting to mention the guild castles were dependent on the free guild alliance that was now drawn away to a war with the pirates.

"Then I probably shouldn't use it yet" at least his conclusion was correct, "and you could never speak to them because all they do is growl and attack you right?"

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"Even if we catch one they are just random generated monster", adding, "Players can't take a giant character because all the spawn points are guarded and they will just be killed with an overpriced null level avatar", remembering something, "the pirates are supposed to have some giant Players so maybe they have a hidden spawn where people are less prejudiced"

"Jovial!", Allen suddenly remembered his friend.

"That's one way to put it", Jeremy replied to the strange wording.

"I just remembered my friend", quickly adding "I told him to make a Kobold character and that I would watch over him"

"What happened" The human asked sarcastically, "you saw some loot?"

"You could say that", moping with each word, "another reason to go back to the capital faster"

"Don't be so sad", trying to cheer him up, "why not send him a message offline?"

"I don't know his offline name", evading the secret truth.

Jeremy heard the sounds of battle down the pass and Allen was already agitated by the time he equipped his dagger and cast "long stride" and "mage armor"

Coming to the scene all he could see was carnage, the smaller Giants after which the pass was named were strewn all over the place, broken forms and torn limbs, some were crushed under huge boulders, but it still seemed like they were winning against the earth elementals as there were dozens more of the Goliaths and only a few remaining elementals still intact around the low stone wall that formed a tiny keep, gaping holes where the wall was breached were numerous and it looked like the next wave will crumble it.

"Disintegrate" boomed throughout the pass from a frost giant wizard.

"Null magic", saved the fort from the spell.

Understanding fell on Jeremy like a bolder from a giant, this was the power of a legacy character, of the woman that almost swore to destroy his guild, now he knew she could do it single handedly, maybe with a top ranking Player Afriat could slow her down, but Julian wasn't even a bump in her path.

The dragon roared and charged into the fray, flinging the goliaths left and right as it cut a path toward the unnamed barricade, "haste" Jeremy cast on himself and followed.

There were actually three circular lower walls protecting a central keep and from up close Jeremy realised they were only lower compared to the Giants laying the siege, "tempest" the storm Giant cast on the dragon and they were immediately blinded by the swirling snow and biting cold.

"Daylight", seemed a strange choice until he found there was a break in the icy fog with streams of sunlight showing him where to go, finally inside the keep Jeremy collapsed against the wall in relative safety.

"We have to fly out of here", he heard Kyatha order Allen and rushed to join her in the palanquin.

When Jeremy came back from the blackout they were still inside the besieged fort, "damn that frost giant Player" he heard Kyatha cursing when he opened his eyes, Allen was hobbling a wing and seemed like he flew through a tornado, maybe it was good he wasn't concious to actually see it.

"Can we charge out like we came in?", the dragon asked.

"Coming in was easy", Kyatha after thinking, "you came from behind their backs and surprised them", adding, "going out will be much more difficult"

"Guardian of light" another strange creature appeared, a yellow skinned boar with tiny wings and huge tusks, after a few seconds its eyes were glowing a sinister red, "welcome friend", Allen said, "what is you name?"

Confused it looked at the dragon and then its eyes glazed, "Shovermatsor" came out in crunching snorts like rocks grinding against each other, "what is thy bidding?" Still looking suspiciously at Allen.

"We need to get out of here and cant fly away", Allen ignored the gaping stares from the other Players.

"I need to assess the situation", the tiny wings flapped and carried the extremely anti aerodinamic flying pig over the wall, it returned after a few minutes, "you can't leave" it said in a dry grinding tone.