She sat there, watching them work. The final image of the black stone tower rose in her mind, again and again, different each time. Dirak-Feûr – Dark Tower in her maiden tongue of Elvish – was its name. She didn’t really care that it was simple, to those that didn’t know Elvish, it sounded intimidating and mystical enough. She took another sip of her drink, a fruit juice made from torraberries. The drink reminded her of her old home on Torra, back in Segoe. Tears glistened in her eyes as the thought of ‘home’ filled her heart.

Torraberry juice was perhaps the most bitter thing she had ever drank. Her thirty years of youth in Torra had not made it any more tolerable, however. Even so, it was just how she liked it. The bullying, her parent’s death, the Orc’s invasion, and her exile had made Torra nothing but bitter memories. It was… weird to have a home again. For eighty-five years, she had been without a home, without a family. For her, the guild was everything. In just a measly three months, they had banished the dark cloud that hovered around the dearest values. Tyre, Norden, Joban, Luke, Yourilef, Farkan, and Zorroz. They had replaced the family, the home, the kinship she had never had.

The smile on her face stretched wider and wider. Likan, Raiesa, and Yorij could also be considered family, but with them, she never felt like they were equal. Raiesa hid it well, but she could often feel the feelings of inferiority practically rolling off the old woman. Despite the fact that they were equal socially, privately, they all deferred to her. The people of Fallen Crescent were opposites – they were separated with guild ranks, with her at the top. But they all treated each other like equals, and with her often at the butt of the jokes.

She was a loner, and her painful past had led her to develop a heart of ice that let no warm emotions in. Before she was imprisoned in Frostmouth, she had never made a single friend, only business acquaintances. It was not the guild that warmed her heart at first, but it was them who melted the last of the ice in it. She prided herself on her logical thinking and cool composure, but when it came to friendship, she became so emotional.

She laughed a little to herself. It was about time she started living a better life.

“… A dream…?”

-_-_-

Isil did not know why there was a secret room in her office, but she was happy for it. It was most likely a gift on behalf of the Creator, who stuck her in the game. After all, there was really no bedroom for her, other than the barracks. It was surprising that the bedroom was hidden behind a secret bookshelf rather than in plain view. She could only assume it was due to the floating orbs in the same room.

Permanent wards had control loci, often in the form of geometric shapes. Most of the loci used in Dirak-Feûr’s wards were spheres with different colors, but there was a few pyramids, representing purely attack wards. These loci were numerous, and thus color-coded for ease of understanding. Blue represented defense, red represented attack, and purple represented other wards like teleportation, dimensional transcendence, running water, and air fresheners. There was also a single, silver orb that floated just a bit above the others. From what Isil could tell, it was control loci for control loci. There was numerous amounts of control loci, and in the event of a raid, it would be hard for one person to control all of those loci. Thus, a single control loci was created, and now lurks in Isil’s bedroom.

Isil did not think that it would be used again, despite its importance. Guild Raids were done by players, and very few characters were stronger than players. Since there were no players, and those at their level of strength could be counted on two hands, the control loci was likely never to be used again.

Isil groaned slightly as she awoke. The fleeting remnants of a dream lingered in her mind, bothering her as she was unable to remember exactly what it was she dreamt about. Yawning, she got up from her bed, and turned towards the wooden chest at the foot of the bed. She once again supplied the light with mana, allowing her to spot all of the magic accessories she had previously dumped into the chest. For her mission into the ruins, she would first stop at Suugant, and listen in for any rumors about the Elytron Ruins. After which, she would head into the ruins, hopefully after hearing useful information. Once she found the avatar that resided there, she had questions to ask.

Her first problem was her normal attire. Isil normally wore part of the Umber Queens’ mage set – the robes, bracelets, boots, and gloves – and other eye-catching magical artifacts. Her main goal in her pilgrimage was to be discreet, and her opulent clothing wouldn’t make her easy to forget. However, she still needed those items to perform her best in combat. A disguise spell was hard to use due to the many things it needed to manage. So while a disguise spell would be useful for changing the face slightly, spreading it to other parts of the body meant she had to take into account shadows, light reflection, smell, mana emission, sound, and the feeling of the cloth.

“I know I had it in here somewhere...” Isil muttered to herself, digging through the wooden footlocker.

Thankfully, Isil had something in mind to counter this problem. Her solution was a storage artifact, a trinket that used the principal of dimensional transcendence to store more than its own size. The specific storage artifact she was looking for was a simple string necklace whose actual storage artifact was a small amber crystal. While she did not believe it would be in there, she did remember owning it and putting it somewhere in guild storage. Besides, she was very interested in what the chest held.

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“Aha!” Isil exclaimed. “Here you are. What were you doing in there, huh?”

Isil removed her intended storage pendant from the chest, a smug grin on her face. She set the pendant on the bed, and looked over her artifacts and clothing. She stored the clothing in the pendant, as well as her circlet, bracelets, and necklace. She left out two rings and a single bracelet. The bracelet was from the Umber Queens’ set, and was the one she was most determined to keep out. The bracelet was a simple black band, with runic lines that were hard to see, even under the light. It granted the use of three Unique spells from three of the legendary Umber Queens, as well as a few, much less important, magic buffs.

One was the Illusion spell Mephisto, coming from the Umber Queen of Deceit. The spell allows one to cause their face to appear hazy and unimaginable when someone recalls them. In the game, it was used to commit crimes without getting a bounty, or to repeat first-meeting dialogues (which became a well-known bug that many people exploited for easy exp). The second was the Alteration spell Shadow Travel, coming from the Umber Queen of Espionage. The spell allows one to travel into something’s shadow, and remain there for a period of time, even if the object is moving. This spell was often used to hitch free rides of fast-moving flying monsters to get from one place to another. The third and final spell was Isil’s personal favorite, the Destruction spell Shadow Burn, from the Umber Queen of Engulfing. The spell caused a person’s shadow to burn, inflicting large amounts of damage but no pain. The best part of the spell was that it was nearly impossible to escape from, unless one surrounded themselves with light sources. It also completely disintegrated the person if it kills them, making it a rather useful assassination spell. While Isil would need the first spell the most, the second was useful for tailing anyone, and the third she loved for no identifiable reason.

The two rings did not grant spells like the Umber Queens’ Bracelet, but provided rather substantial benefits to her magic and physical state. The first ring, a plain silver one with the runes on the inside, provided a large enough increase to her physical stats that she would be able to wrestle with a normal grizzly bear, which would be greatly beneficial to her magic-focused body. The other was a gold ring embedded with a diamond. It decreased the cost of all schools of magic by a fifth. Isil wanted to keep up the appearance of a commoner, so wearing two rings would be a bit much. She had chosen these rings not only due to their powerful enchantments, but also because they looked like wedding rings. Her normal rings were more powerful than those, but all looked flashier.

In the end, she chose the silver band, knowing her magic prowess already outstripped most of the world by a large margin. As for her clothes, she found a good amount of enchanted commoner clothing in the footlocker. She would put those into traveling bag later, so she wouldn’t arouse suspicion when trying to enter Suugant. As for everything else necessary for a journey, she would have some maids prepare things for her. Satisfied with her choices, she finally changed out of her pajamas and into her traveling clothes. She pulled down the on the lever on the back of the bookshelf, opening her secret room back into the office.

-_Hours Pass_-

Isil once again assigned orders to the scouting teams, and doubled the amount of scouts. She sent them off on a far longer expedition, even ordering a few teams to travel to the Delta Islands in the East. She had considered sending some teams down South to investigate the Gomggoth and Segoe continents, but she thought it was better to keep the scouts close in case of an emergency, even if an emergency was unlikely.

“My lady…” A young female avian tugged weakly at the hem of Isil’s clothes and spoke up timidly. “C-can you...”

“Lucille, you don’t need to worry about me.” Isil knelt down to eye level and grabbed Lucille’s hands. “I’ll be just fine. I’m very capable, you don’t need to worry about me. You just work on your numbers and I’ll be back by the time you realize it. Okay?”

“Okay...” Lucille muttered weakly, and let go of Isil’s clothes.

Lucille was the child of Quasir and Namou, two of the avian scout team leaders. It was a mystery how exactly she came to be created when she never existed before, but Isil felt very close to her. She vaguely felt as though she had been close with the young child. Adding to that hunch, when she thought about Lucille, any questions were answered, as if she already knew the answer. She had explored this further when she began to mentally ask questions about everyone else in the guild. Most of the questions were answered in the same manner, but some were left unanswered.

Combining this phenomenon with the existence of scars she shouldn’t have and the new magic spells she had never learned, she could form a rough guess as to why they existed. Of course, she couldn’t prove it, so she simply left it in the back of her mind.

“If something urgent happens that requires my attention, immediately alert me, otherwise, do not contact me first. It is of the utmost importance that I do not alert anyone to my presence there, understood?” Isil stated, gazing into the crowd.

““““Yes, ma’am!”””” They replied, saluting with their right fist place over their left breast.

“Good. Take good care of yourselves while I’m gone.” Isil waved her hand, then walked out the doors of the tower and into the open, where she was greeted by a decorated honor guard holding the reins of a brown horse.

The honor guard was a special division of the normal guild guards, and protected the most important members of the guild and any VIPs. Because of their high status, they were allowed to wear personal arms and armor instead of the uniform. Their only requirement was having the mark of Fallen Crescent stamped somewhere on their working clothing. The honor guard that held the horse was wearing heavy silver armor, giving off the image of a paladin. His mark of allegiance was stamped in the center of his breastplate.

“My lady, please be careful out there.” The honor guard warned, handing over the reins to Isil.

“Worry about yourself, I’ll be fine.” Isil chuckled, finding the numerous warnings rather funny.

“Of course. None of us doubt your ability, we just wish to see you return safe.” The honor guard bowed as Isil straddled the horse.

Isil shook her head wryly. She snapped the reins with a “giddyup” and the horse took off North. Isil turned and waved her hand, noticing the large amounts of returning gestures. She snapped the reins again, surprised with her own skill with the horse.

“Damn, I really need to figure out my own limits before I screw myself over.” Isil muttered.

After seven chapters, Isil finally began her journey through the lands of Tyverra. It’s about time!