After Dan logged off for the night he was confronted with a hysterical VDP (Virtual Display Phone [my invention as a mobile phone replacement]), it was ringing and vibrating and generally having some kind of hissy fit. He picked it up and discovered that he had 12 unread text messages, 7 voicemails and 5 unseen video messages.
"Good god, who the hell wants to get hold of me this badly. Can't be mum as she would have just come got me out of the capsule and Dad's abroad so it's not him, it's not like I have any really close friends that call me this much. Huh best have a look i suppose."
He gingerly answered one of the video messages and nearly jumped out of his skin when a virtual image of his brothers head and shoulders popped up in front of him swearing sulphurously.
"Oi Dan! Answer your goddamned phone you useless bloody brother, what's going on with your character on RR? For some reason there were loads of priests praying and bowing after you when you walked past, what did you do? Was it some kind of epic quest or what? Call me back when you get this."
Dan laughed at the hysterical tone in his brothers message and then wondered what he should tell him. He decided to text Steve rather than call him because he didn't want to deal with multiple questions or tell him exactly what had happened to him.
His text read like this: Steve don't worry nothing's wrong, I've just changed my class to a special kind of paladin that i can't tell you about in detail because I'll lose the class if I do. I'm going off on some adventures solo for the time being and I'll tell you more about it later. Dan
Then having done that he went to get himself some dinner before logging back on.
When he logged back in it was night and he was outside Ymrheim in some woodlands, there was nothing around him and he still felt the strange pull towards the west.
Arthe decided to walk through the night hunting monsters as he went in order to increase his level, at one point around 1 am game time he discovered a small clearing lit with pale moonlight. A beautiful pond was in the center of the clearing and from the pool came a bright blue glow, he went to get a drink from it when a message window popped up in front of him.
You have discovered the enchanted glade.
Reputation increase denied because of class
Fame increase denied because of class
You are well rested, experience gain increase by 1.5x
Drinking from the enchanted waters will permanently increase your Mana pool by 200 points.
It was while Arthe was drinking from the pond that he heard a strange sound coming from nearby, he hurriedly filled his water flask and headed in the direction of the sounds origin. He came upon a group of moving lights surrounding a person, he couldn't tell who or what the person was because the glowing lights were obscuring his vision so he decided to wait and see what would happen. The individual was flailing about with their weapon trying to drive the lights away but all he/she was doing was making their situation worse, the lights began to land on him/her and this action was accompanied by muted gasps of pain. It was at this point that Arthe decided to jump in and help, he summoned a sphere of light and sent it towards the strange glowing creatures which left the person they were attacking and chase after Arthe's light sphere instead.
He sent the light sphere as far away as he could before terminating the spell and turning to the person behind him.
"What did you do to cause those things to attack you?" He asked whilst attempting to get a decent look at the individual in question.
"Do? I didn't do anything, I was only trying to light a fire when I was suddenly surrounded by those weird things. Anyway who are you to question my actions especially since you haven't even introduced yourself." Came the disgruntled response.
Arthe gulped, he had heard that voice before and not that long ago either. It was the princess of Baldur, Frith.
"We have met before your highness, my name is Arthedain or Arthe if you prefer. You remember we fought at the grand melee a month ago."
"Ah yes so we did, you defeated me as I recall. I tried to find your whereabouts after the contest but you had vanished, were you off adventuring somewhere?" Replied her royal highness, jewel of Baldur, light of the kingdom, apple of her father's eye and so on.
"Not in so many words your highness, I was training with the Paladins of Freya until yesterday when I entered their ranks myself. I am now setting out into the world according to the will of the goddess." Arthe answered, choosing his words carefully.
"Hmm is that so, then I will accompany you on your travels. It's been getting really boring around here recently I could do with some excitement."
"Forgive me your highness;" "Urgh call me Frith please I hate all that princess nonsense."
"Very well Frith, I am afraid I cannot allow you to accompany me as my duties are far to dangerous and even I am not aware of where they will take me." Arthe responded quickly after he was interrupted by Frith.
"Dangerous, that's exactly what I want. Besides you have seen with your own eyes that I can take care of myself, plus if you refuse I shall have you arrested."
"Ding" Quest received.
Escort the princess.
Accompany Frith on her adventures through the wilderness.
Difficulty: unknown
Rewards: reputation with the kingdom of Baldur, your freedom.
Requirements: Acquaintance with princess Frith and must have participated in the Grand Melee.
If this quest is denied then you will be branded a criminal and hunted down in the Baldur kingdom, should the princess die you will have a kill on sight order put out on you and no one will allow you to buy from them in Baldur kingdom and its neighbors.
Arthe sighed after looking at the quest and then accepted it with resignation, when he did so Frith grinned at him and gave him a thumbs up.
"Okay then where are we off to first Arthe, and by the way which of the paladin orders do you belong to. I haven't seen that tabard before."
"We are heading west, to where I don't know yet and I am unable to tell you what order I belong to. It's forbidden." Arthe replied even as he started to walk off westwards.
"What do you mean it's forbidden, I'm the princess of Baldur, I command you to tell me." Frith demanded a bit irritably.
"Unfortunately for you Frith I am not one of your citizens and I answer to no power save that of Freya herself or her representative in this mortal realm. So you will just have to live without knowing what I am or where I plan to travel," Arthe responded, " unless of course you would be willing to return to the palace?" This last bit was said quite hopefully.
"Not a chance Arthe, you're not getting rid of me that easily. If you won't tell me I'll have to figure it out, there's only 3 orders to choose from anyway so it's not like it's difficult to guess."
Arthe grinned as she said this, knowing that very few people were aware of the existence of his class and they were all either the same class or grandmasters of the Paladin order. As they traveled along during the rest of the night he had to put up with countless questions about his skills and abilities, as dawn broke Frith finally came out with 3 straight questions.
"Are you an Arbiter?"
"No I am not a member of the Order of Arbiters."
"Then are you a member of the Order of Freya's Grace?"
"No I'm not part of that order either."
"In which case you must be a member of the Order of Holy Light." Frith exclaimed triumphantly only to have her hopes dashed.
"No I am not a member of the Order of Holy Light. Princess I must caution you that to continue this line of questioning puts you at risk of imprisonment by the church, what I am is a closely guarded secret known to few inside the church itself and none outside. If you persist I must abandon you and the quest you gave me regardless of the consequences, I cannot be swayed from my task by your order or that of any King. Forgive me for my bluntness but that is the truth of the matter." Arthe explained the facts of his circumstances to Frith and continued walking.
"Hmm if that is the case then I suppose I must stop questioning you then hadn't I, but I will say this. There are secret records in the royal library from before the creation of the Kingdom of Baldur that speak of an ancient order of paladins whose origins and membership is the worlds most closely guarded secret, if you are one of those then you have my utmost respect and sympathy." Frith replied quietly and with great respect.
When Arthe turned to look at her she even had tears in the corner of her eyes, it was evident that she knew more than she was supposed to about the Guardian order but it was too late for him to worry about now. On the plus side it meant he could proceed with his tasks without having to explain to her why he was doing it or what his next move would be, also she was beautiful so he would have someone nice to look at on his travels and someone to talk to. He was also aware that as he was over 18 there was an 'ahem' adult side to royal road and that even if Frith was an NPC, due to the high sophistication of the AI software, she was absolutely lifelike in her mental and 'ahem' physical capabilities. So if he played his cards right, who knows? (Readers please forgive me, I swear it's in Arthe's nature as a social recluse, I'm innocent of all wrongdoing in this. Don't judge me.)
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The two of them traveled together for a couple of months, hunting down monsters here and there and rescuing the occasional villager from monsters. After 9 weeks of adventuring they had both increased their level to the 120's, Arthe was level 128 and Frith was level 124. In addition to this Arthe had leveled all of his holy skills up into the intermediate stages with his lowest at Intermediate 3 and his highest at Intermediate 8, with his class boost and his helmet boost he even had a couple at Advanced 1. This meant his holy magic was far above the skill levels of the other priest or paladin users and with his leveling armor his stats remained at highly boosted levels as well, unfortunately he had to replace most of the armor with what he obtained off of monster drops and as such he didn't look quite as good as he had before.
Frith on the other hand had taken a small fortune with her when she left the palace and had been consistently buying newer and better equipment as she had leveled, not that Arthe was jealous or anything. It was just that most of the money received from the monster drops was taken used up buying food and supplies for Frith and because Arthe's fame was negated by his class he could not receive a discount from any of the merchants he bought from. This meant he had trouble buying expensive equipment and so had to rely on drops.
However it was not all bad news thanks to his Freya's Guidance skill, Arthe had managed to discover the location of a dungeon full of undead which also contained clues to the whereabouts of another piece of the Justicar's armor. According to the information provided by the Goddess the clues pointed to the location of the Justicar's sword, Arthe was practically drooling about finding this sword because it would solve his most pressing issue.
Finding a weapon that could cope with the strength of his holy power channeling through it, needless to say it was already difficult enough to obtain a holy attribute weapon from the body of an evil monster but finding one which could withstand an advanced holy spell running through it was almost impossible. When he had the sword Arthe would not have to rely on his spells quite so much and could get back to doing what he enjoyed most, bashing monsters with a bit of metal. He also wouldn't have to worry about getting hit quite so much as he could use both his shield and his sword to defend himself properly, that way even if most of his armor was low quality then he could still cope with a number of heavy attacks. Admittedly even without a holy attribute sword Arthe could still use his sword skills to kill enemies but he was sure that he would need his holy powers to be really strong in the future so he had concentrated mainly on those, still his sword skills had also been leveled slightly to Beginner 6.
Arthe and Frith had become quite close over the last few weeks, initially she had been a bit imperious and standoffish but that had changed after Arthe saved her from being eaten by a giant wasp. The monster had come out of nowhere whilst he was repairing their armor and carried her off before he could react, so he had grabbed their gear and chased after it regardless of the danger. Arthe had followed it back to a giant wasps nest inside a cliff and had hacked and cut his way through all the inhabitants until he had found her, when she had seen him covered in wounds and coated with the entrails of a hundred dead wasps she had hugged him hard and apologized profusely for her previous attitude. Right after that they had gone after the wasp queen and butchered her, good times.
Now the two of them swapped stories about their families and had competitions over who could eat the most honey before getting ill or who could go the longest without talking. Arthe invariably won the latter whilst Frith usually won the former, these kind of activities and others made the journey more enjoyable and Arthe could not remember having such a pleasant time at any point of his life in game or in reality.
The biggest headache on his mind at the moment was the consistent pulling towards the west, he could feel it all day and it never seemed to get any lighter. He assumed it meant he was being called to aid someone in need but he wanted to be at least level 150 before he started taking on proper paladin quests, he had no desire to die on his first task as a Guardian.
It had been two days after Arthe had spoken to Freya about the undead dungeon, now he and Frith were stood in front of it. Dungeon wasn't quite the right word, castle was a more apt description. The dungeon was small castle that looked to have been a border fort at some point in the distant past now it was occupied by ghosts and other undead fiends, according to the local villagers anyway.
You are the first to discover the Fort of the Oath-breakers.
Fame increase negated by class.
Double experience for a week
Item drop rate doubled and the first monster of each type drops the best equipment it can.
Subsequent monsters drop common loot.
Named Monsters drop ancient equipment.
Arthe had never seen the last sentence before and neither had Frith, they looked at each other excitedly, sure that they were about to get some awesome loot. Then they proceeded to enter the fort warily, the first monsters they encountered were ghouls of varying types but these monsters left them alone due to Arthe's high fighting spirit and so they were able to get into the main hall itself before they came across any other undead.
There were 3 Dullahan in the room sitting around a table laden with rotted food and dusty crockery, Arthe was slightly worried about their numbers but then reassured himself that his holy magic was more than sufficient to dispose of them before things got too hairy.
Frith wasn't worried at all and actually seemed to revel in the danger, she gestured at Arthe to take two of the Dullahan while she engaged the third.
She attacked using her razor sharp epee, thrusting the point at the head carried in the monsters arms. Arthe on the other hand was repeatedly casting Holy Bolt and Holy smite on his opponents causing them to screech in agony, eventually they succumbed to the power of the light and he then watched as Frith finally nailed her opponent right between the eyes.
All three of the Dullahan corpses turned grey and disappeared, one of them dropped an arm band and the other two dropped rusty pieces of armor. The arm band was silver and it was engraved with runic symbols, it emanated a feeling of evil and Arthe stopped Frith from touching it before she was hurt. He cast purify on the item until it no longer emitted an evil aura but instead felt pure and holy, then he gestured to Frith to pick it up.
She had a higher level identify skill then Arthe so he usually let her look at the items first, this time she let out a low gasp of surprise before handing the bracelet to Arthe.
Armband of the Numenorian Captain:
Durability:100/100
This bracelet once belonged to the guard captain of a border fort, he wore it in battle for many years and it absorbed much of his combat prowess.
Worn for centuries by an agent of evil it has recently been purified by a Holy personage and as such has gained bonuses to its effects.
Equip:
+20 STR
+20 VIT
+15% Attack Power
+10% Attack speed
Wearer can cast minor Blessing on self 3 times per day.
Requirements:
Level 120
+50 WIS
+100 STR
+60 STAM
Arthe examined the object closely before handing it back to Frith, she looked at him quizzically for a second.
"You can have it, I don't need the blessing effect and it has many effects suitable for a pure warrior type such as yourself."
"Thanks Arthe, I'm sure it'll come in handy when we're destroying the rest of this forts inhabitants." Frith smiled at Arthe and lightly gripped his hand for a moment.
Then the two of them headed on further into the fort.