Orleana. Day 03.
Orleana was the third largest of Navorinelle’s Guardian Cities by population behind Araedi and Ven Istera. Its main appeal had always been its hybrid pirate-steampunk aesthetic. As such, it had become the main hub of roleplayers and the home of the largest guild in Annwyn Online, The Brotherhood of Pirates.
The Brotherhood was a loose knit guild largely centered upon role-playing and hunting for treasure and sea monsters off the limited bits of Navorinelle’s coasts the game had given them access to. Which, according to lore, has largely been deposited there during the Golden Age of Piracy.
The Golden Age of Piracy nearly five hundred years ago had filled the seas thousands of ships laden with lost treasures before the Age of Sea Monsters ended travel between Terre’s continents. And the many players across Annwyn Online had done much to recover that treasure, making Orleana also one of the wealthiest of the Guardian Cities.
Saiph had spent a fair bit of time in Orleana in his first two years playing the game. The Brotherhood was his first guild, started with Will-I-Am and a few close friends. Many of North Remembers’ founding members came from the Brotherhood and the two guilds had always regarded each other as sister guilds. Membership with North Remembers also granted membership within the Brotherhood.
It was late in the day when Saiph, Nix, and Lueur Rose approached Orleana’s gates. The city’s magic barrier cast a faint purple glow on the grey skies above and the salty ocean air was a welcome scent that reminded Saiph of the few trips he and his family had made to Washington’s beaches at the height of summer.
A short woman holding a large picnic basket, Rose’s girlfriend, Saiph presumed, waved in an extremely exaggerated manner, her arm going in a half circle that started at her waist and ended just above her head.
She wore oversized wood-framed glasses that took up just under half her face. Perhaps her most striking feature were the rabbit ears sticking down underneath her white and cream witch’s hat. The text above her head identified her as Lunette Soleil, a level ninety-seven Druid-Pyromancer.
Lunette and Rose embraced and, to Saiph’s astonishment, began speaking in American Sign Language. He recognized some of the signs, but couldn’t follow their conversation as it wasn’t aimed at him.
The pair turned to Saiph and Nix and Rose spoke. “Lunette is Deaf, though she could hear you, she can’t really understand you and finds all the sounds disorienting. So she still has her audio muted in the settings and prefers to speak in ASL. She says hello!”
Saiph smiled at her and willed gestures he hadn’t used in over two years as he signed, “Hello! My name is Isaac or Saiph.”
It had taken the two girls a moment to recognize what he was doing, but both of their eyes went wide in astonishment.
“Are you a CODA, too?” Lunette signed, cocking her head in question. A child of deaf adults, she meant.
“No, my girlfriend, Riley—” Saiph used her signed name, which was her middle name, Rose, an R swept under his nose as if smelling the actual flower. “—lost her voice when she was little and signed.”
He had signed facing both Rose and Lunette and the two caught the meaning in his past tense. Though Rose already knew from a conversation they’d had the other day.
Saiph had been driving himself and Riley home from their winter formal when they’d been hit by a drunk driver who’d rammed them through an intersection. The accident had killed Riley and left Saiph with some nerve damage that left him partially paralyzed on his left side. He hadn’t shared those specific details with Rose.
That was at least part of the reason why she was willing to help Saiph get to Pallas’ Watch. It was the guild castle Riley had used for her guild, Sonnet’s Little Helpers, which had been a newbie-friendly helping guild. When Saiph and everyone else had been brought to this world, someone or something had been logged into Riley’s account and they were in that guild castle, ignoring Saiph’s attempts to contact them. The thought of someone using her account felt almost like a desecration.
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Saiph took the time to pass along the locations of the safe zones in the Godsfall Mountains he’d mapped out years earlier to Rose to share with a friend of hers who was travelling in the same direction as Pallas’ Watch. They’d agreed to wait in Ven Istera for Saiph and a party to meet them there and take them through the Godsfall mountains.
Safe zones were like the Guardian cities, only far smaller. Players could fast travel to and from them and they kept hostile monsters at bay. There were thirty across Navorinelle, with basically all of them in the west or north where there weren’t any Guardian Cities nearby. Saiph hoped they still existed, otherwise it would be a slog to get to his guild castle.
Suddenly Lunette glanced at Nix, as if suddenly remembering he was there. She looked at Saiph and signed to him.
Saiph couldn’t help but laugh with Lunette and began signing back to her, all the while glancing at Nix.
Nix looked up from his grimoire and glared at Saiph. “You two are talking about me, aren’t you?”
“Yeah,” Saiph answered with a smile.
“What are you two saying?” Nix shouted a little defensively.
Saiph burst into tearful laughter again. “Lunette thinks you’re cute. Like a little doll!”
The pewter-skinned Runic elf Summoner’s face grew bright red. It didn’t really help that Nix was just barely over four feet tall, well shorter than everyone standing with him.
When they split off from Lueur Rose and Lunette Soleil, Nix turned to Saiph. “I think… I think I understood you three.”
Now it was Saiph’s turn to be astonished. “You know ASL?”
Nix shook his head. “No, I’m pretty sure I can’t sign. But something is letting me understand you both. I didn’t catch all of it and I don’t think it’s a perfect translation… Almost like you two were mumbling, if that makes sense.”
No, it didn’t make sense. But then again, nothing made sense anymore.
Saiph paused. He turned to Nix and began signing. “Can you tell what I said?”
“You said your favorite color is blue. I understood you that time.”
“Yeah, I figured so. Hard to read signs you can't fully see. I wonder if it means we know any other languages. Or maybe even all of them,” Saiph mused. “I'd love to test that out. I know some French Canadians in the Brotherhood we can bother. But we should get to the guildhall first. Besides attuning ourselves, I've got some gear to pick up.”
“Hopefully new armor,” Nix said. “Don't think that just because I can, I will fix your armor every time you wreck it.”
“If you'd picked a proper DPS class and killed things as fast as I can, I wouldn't have to keep getting hit so much. You know each hit actually hurts, right?”
“No, I didn't. Then I definitely picked the right class,” Nix said with a snicker.
Jokes aside, the armor Saiph was wearing was extremely battered and the chainmail in tatters that showed his tunic and plain clothes underneath. He'd destroyed it in an explosive end to a dungeon crawl he, Nix, Rose, and a pair of bots-turned-alive had finished the previous night.
Fortunately it wasn't his only armor or even his best. His long time friend and guildmate, Permaphrost, had tested the banking system used to transport items across the player cities and found it still worked and he'd sent Saiph’s top tier raid armor ahead for him.
He'd need it for his upcoming plans to go to the guild castle he'd given to his girlfriend as a base for her support guild that helped new players out years ago. Her account was showing as online in the guild castle. There was just one problem: she'd been dead for almost two years now and her account hadn't been logged in since. Saiph was certain someone had hacked it and gotten placed in her character's body when whatever event that brought millions of players to this world had happened three days ago. A part of Saiph hoped he’d find Riley, no matter how impossible that was. Saiph pushed the thought from his mind as he and Nix continued to Orleana’s guildhall.
Orleana’s guildhall had the appearance of the Saint Louis Cathedral in New Orleans back on earth. But much like the guildhalls in every city, it was far larger and more embellished in its scale and appearance.
Players milled about, dressed in Victorian-esque clothing or armor and mage robes and even many of the NPCs had adopted similar fashion.
Saiph attuned himself and made his way to a set of cubicles labeled “marketplace”. There wasn't anything in the cubicle besides a small white crystal that flared to life as Saiph approached it. He held up his own Caer Fragment and a screen appeared in front of him.
The screen displayed the inventory of items Permaphrost had left for Saiph; various potions, his armor, and the crafting materials needed to repair them.
Saiph changed out his damaged black, blue, and gold armor for the red, white, and gold of his good armor. The enchantments were geared towards his preferred tanking style, the “drain tank” Scarlet Knight build. The enchanted items he wore not only enhanced his stats and attributes, but made the life draining and stat stealing enchantments of his sword, Durendal’s Edge and shield, Miasma, much more potent. And he would likely need every last one to fight his way through the high level Godsfall Mountains and to Pallas’ Watch to figure out what is going on with his late girlfriend’s account.