A New World, an immersive game experience

Eldrian wanted to talk with the smiths busy making the armor set, unfortunately, him visiting the smithy was already the limit and he understood this clearly. It was only arranged since he was the acting mayor, he would never have been allowed in this particular floating stalactite if he was just a random person.

'This room is also very special.' Eldrian commented after moving his eyes from the pieces being worked on. The forges were regulated through a complex array hidden in the background, with different forges available for the different ranks of materials.

There was also a couple of ports that Eldrian assumed was for charging an item or something. At least that was what his intuition told him it would be for according to the shape of the arrays.

Eldrian was certain that there was even more here than meets the eye. Part of him suspected that these stalactites were similar to magic towers. Which made him wonder just what the true smithy would look like. And also slightly curious what the other two would actually be like.

"Next, let me show you our famous dwarven ale," Ingvar said once Eldrian visibly calmed down.

...

The two returned to the keep a few hours later, Eldrian barely managing to stay upright. Ingvar on the other hand was still perfectly fine.

"How can you dri-drink so much?" Eldrian asked while leaning on the dwarf, just two mugs had nearly caused him to blackout yet Ingvar had downed more than ten.

"You just need to practice," Ingvar replied, actually impressed that Eldrian had managed to stay awake.

"Practice... Always practice..." Eldrian mumbled, 'I need a detoxify spell.'

'That's cheating!' Two countered, not faring much better than Eldrian. They shared one body after all.

'Bah, cheating smeathing. What does it matter?' Eldrian countered back and smiled as he saw a worried Sanja rushing over.

She quickly took over from Ingvar, she was surprisingly strong. Capable of lifting Eldrian onto her back with ease.

"How much did you drink?" She asked as she took Eldrian to his room.

"Tw-hick-two"

Sighing, Sanja simply dropped Eldrian at his room and left him there to his own devices.

...

Eldrian woke a few hours later, uncertain how to feel about what had happened. Diving out of ANW he quickly confirmed that everything was still fine IRL before returning.

'What's the plan going forward?' Two asked, not wanting to talk about their low alcohol tolerance.

'I'm thinking we wrap this up quickly and return to our true objective.'

'Do you think we can wrap this up quickly?'

'I see no reason why not. Keep focusing on the new blueprint. When we return to Kynigo I want to start immediately.'

'Sure.'

Deciding to explore the city, Eldrian went ahead and set himself a teleportation point. Having avoided it until now, having always been aware that he would need to make use of it sooner or later.

He was happy by the simple fact that it went smoothly, though connecting had been harder than usual. Eldrian had to even go so far as to form a telepathic connection before managing to call up the temple's interface.

'Assuming that that was due to my connection being severed and separate, I am actually not mad it was so much harder.' Eldrian mumbled as he explored the city at night, he was actually relieved as it made him trust GAIA's words just a tiny bit more.

As he explored Eldrian found that there were surprisingly many patrols moving through the streets, making him wonder why. After passing by the fifth patrol, he decided that it might be better to simply return to the keep.

Halfway back the horns of battle roared.

Looking at his map, Eldrian quickly figured out what was happening. It appeared that a horde of monsters had found an unexplored tunnel, or made a new one. They were currently pouring into the road connecting Pordor to the rest of Ganalin. Outside of the city, but close to the gate.

The dwarves were clearly not caught off guard, they already had a formation waiting for the monsters. From the change in dots, it was clear that they were winning by a landslide.

'Well, that is a nice change.' Eldrian thought, far too used to battles being pitched and one mistake from defeat.

Still, he moved towards the fight, not to help but rather curious what these monsters looked like, he had used the map function to Observe one and it was called a Reaver.

[Reaver (bloodline), Tier 4, Level 20]

[HP: 831]

[Mana: 616]

[Attack: 80 (144)]

[A cave-dwelling spider monster. After reaching maturity it most often leaves the nest to fend for itself and start its own cluster. However, it is possible for the mother to recall her brood and command them to the field.]

Like with the Vodi, Eldrian knew he could gain more information. But unfortunately, that did not work through the map.

Rushing past the last line of buildings, Eldrian was stopped by the walls of the city. Yes, the underground city had walls and that threw Eldrian for a moment.

Looking for stairs, Eldrian rushed to the nearest and climbed to the top of the wall. It was only five meters high, not much height at all. If he was more capable in parkour he would have been able to simply jump to the top. In fact, he might be able just by relying on his stats.

Looking at the spiderlike creatures filling the cavern before him, Eldrian quickly realized the dwarves' plan.

A portion of their fighters had rushed to form a dwarven wall between the spider horde and the city. Another portion of dwarves was manning siege equipment or crossbows, raining hell down onto the horde, and killing all who tried to scale the cavern's sides to circumvent the dwarven line.

As everything seemed to be running smoothly, suddenly a few dwarves broke from the line. Charging out of the battle line and to their deaths. This did not seem to come as a shock to the others and using mana sense Eldrian quickly understood what had happened.

[Bloodline ability: Abyssal gaze]

[A mental attack, sending the target into a nightmarish hell. Causing severe panic and often even leading to a heart attack.]

Eldrian got goosebumps, uncertain how he would fare against such an ability. He doubted if he would succumb as some of the dwarves and lose all reason. However, it might just cause him to pause for a second. And in a pitched fight, a second could spell the end.

Despite a larger and larger number of the dwarves losing their nerve and slowly succumbing to this strange ability, the line was kept firm and the siege weapons did their job. As the soldiers slowly started moving backward, Eldrian decided to also join in the fight.

It was the perfect time to test his new casting method.

'Two, I need a really strong fire rune and a cyclone one!'

'Let me see... Right, this rune should be strong enough to do considerable damage. And... Seems we are lacking a cyclone, however, we might be able to overlap these two if you envision to connect them.'

Nodding, Eldrian quickly drew the fire rune, filling it with all the mana it could take, a total of 200MP. He then drew the rune for a shockwave, adding the other that was an amplification rune. Together, it all cost around 350MP.