Chapter 2: Dawn of the crafter II

When Alex opened his eyes he was in a massive library. The library seemed to stretch on for eternity with no end, disconnected book shelves floated independently above his head, giving the place a mystical, otherworldly feeling.

In awe of the location, Alex began to wonder through the many shelves. Despite the gargantuan scale there was not a speck of dust.

While this could be explained by saying the AI in the area did not generate dust, it still gave the library a used feeling, it was as though each book had been picked out each day and read. Each book had a worn spine as well, further adding to the feeling that the library was in constant use.

As Alex walked he gazed at the spines of each book and read the title of each. There where many odd titles that he had never seen before:

'How to care for your eldritch horror'

'World ending spell craft for dummies'

'How reach complete sword mastery in 32 easy steps'

Alex's attention was caught by one book in particular, 'a comprehensive field guide to monsters'. Alex began to reach for the worn spine when he heard a voice behind him.

"I am sorry to say but temporary guests, such as yourself, are strictly prohibited from reading any of the material housed in the library"

The tone of the voice was friendly and pleasant but it still put Alex on edge, he retracted his hand and turned around to find the source of the voice.

Behind him stood a tall, slender, pale blue skinned man with pointed, dagger like ears and floor-length, snow-White hair. The figure wore a black tailcoat, black trousers, a grey waist coat, a white shirt and white gloves. His clothes where immaculately ironed, with not a single crease visible. His eyes had an analytic look, as if they were constantly studying you, it irked Alex and made him feel uncomfortable, it was the same feeling he got when he was young and a teacher at school caught him doing something wrong.

Needles to say, Alex did not like this figure, He unnerved Alex.

"Well you are a new player so I assume this is you first time here?"

"yes" Alex said in a clear voice.

"Well then, I'll have to run you through the steps then, wont I"

"I guess so" Alex said in an awkward tone.

"Good, then let's get started. Firstly what name would you like to go by in this world?"

"Jack Aubrey"

Upon stating his name a screen appeared In front of him.

['The God who conquered the depths' take interest in you]

Alex was taken aback slightly.

"Oh don't mind them" The figure said in a dismissive tone "they'll just be here observing your choices. Oh and where are my manners, you've given me your name but you still don't know mine, please refer to me as the librarian"

"pleasure to meet you"

"Likewise, well onto the next step, which path do you choose, day, night or dawn?"

This choice was one of the most important choices in the entire game, because this choice determines your faction. Alex had some prior knowledge of the factions and there benefits:

Day faction was the good faction, in essence. You would have better affinity toward righteous beings and members of the day faction and you would have minimum affinity towards evil beings and members of the night faction. Evil races and classes would be locked and could not be obtained.

Night faction was the evil faction. You would have better affinity toward evil beings and members of the night faction and you would have minimum affinity with righteous beings and members of the day faction. Righteous races and classes would be locked and could not be obtained.

Dawn faction was the neutral faction. You would have better affinity with no beings and have minimum affinity with all beings except for neutral beings. In return you would have access to all jobs and races and start with a tier 5 classes or a fusion classes and a soul bound relic.

Another important detail is the class system. In this game, classes have no rarity, once you reach level 100 your class is upgraded in tier and your level is reset but all stats and skills stay the same. Once a class reaches tier 5 it cannot be upgraded and when level 100 is reached the player can pick a new tier 1 class. They can choose to keep the two classes separate or fuse them, creating a new class with different skills and attributes to the original.

While many new players decided they would pick the dawn faction for the benefits, the beta testers for the dawn faction all said the same thing, its not worth it.

In a later in depth interview with one of the beta tester the reason was revealed.

"It was the NPCs" the beta tester explained "they are too smart, not many major NPCs are neutral and there aren't many truly neutral cities, so no matter where you go you will find discrimination of some kind. Store prices will be jacked up to ridicules values, quest will be significantly harder for significantly less reward. And to make matters worse, a tier 5 class is not as good as it sounds, many essential skills from lower tier classes are not available to you so its not even that good, and a fusion class could mean you lose some of the skills important to one class in return for skills that aren't that useful. The relic is the only true upside to the faction"

"So would you advise others to not pick the faction?" The interviewer had asked.

"Hell no, sure the npc interactions where crap, and I was running the starter gear for a good while, but the classes where so wacky and fun, it was a bit of a power trip in the early stages, but it did even out after a while"

After the interview many where swayed by the arguments however many still stood by their choice. The only problem was the game had perma-death so many that picked it where killed pretty early due to their slow levelling speed and early game items. As such it was treated more as an optional hard mode among the community.

"Dawn" Alex said with a smile. Despite knowing the drawbacks, Alex loved rage games and stupidly hard games so he would always increase the difficulty as much as possible.

After stating his choice a screen popped up in front of him.

[Many neutral gods take interest in you]

"A fine choice", The Librarian said with a wide grin "now onto the next step, would you like to pick you race or job first, please remember that you job may effect your choice of races and vice versa"

"I'll choose my job first"

"Understood"

The Librarian clapped his hands together and countless books flew off the shelves, forming twisting patterns in the air.

After a short wait, the books settled in the air in front of Alex in tree like patterns.

"Would you like a tier 5 class or a fusion class?"

"Fusion"

"Then please pick as many jobs as you like, the only rule is the total value of their tiers must equal 5"

Alex looked at the many covers each showed a figure performing the skills of the class, Alex had already decided to go into a production class, as they where his comfort class, but the other jobs still bore interest to him. After perusing the many covers his eyes fell on the first book in the summoner class tree. The cover showed many beasts surrounding a man taking care of them.

Due to the multitude of beasts it was hard to make out many of the creatures, Alex took the book to bring it up to his face for closer inspection when it dissolved in his hands.

"A fine choice" The Librarian said in a flattering tone "Summoner happens to be one of my personal favourites"

"wha, bu, I" Alex stammered before finally blurting out "I didn't want to pick that class"

"I'm sorry" The Librarian said, with his face still holding his nauseating smile, as if it had been moulded permanently to his face, "but all choices in the library are final"

Another screen popped up in front of Alex.

['The goddess who tamed the wild' loses interest]

Alex was pissed, but he tried his best to hide it and resumed his search. Eventually he found the blacksmith class tree and instantly picked the first tier of its progression and resumed his search. after a while he had picked 3 other jobs, all at tier 1: Artificer, tailor and jeweler.

Through the whole process, The Librarian had been silent. Simply watching as Alex gave him side eyes and dirty looks.

"What a fine selection, shall we start the fusion"

"Do I have any other choices?" Alex asked.

"No"

"Well lets get it on with, so, what class will be the base?"

"Blacksmith"

The Librarian snapped his fingers and the world seemed to dissolve around Alex. It was as if he had been depraved of all senses, no sound, no light, no air, nothing. When suddenly a rhythmic ting, ting, ting came from somewhere off in the distance.

Alex, having nothing better to do, began to move towards the source of the odd sound. After walking for a few minutes, Alex came to a heavy wooden door. Its wood was old and worn but still standing defiantly, the black metal hinges where rusted and weather beaten, the brass knocker was caked in rust and dearly needed an oiling.

The door seemed like some stalwart guardian, defiantly standing against the trials of time and the wrath of gods, persisting out of sheer willpower. It gave the door a feelin of indomitability and history.

Tentatively, Alex reached for the brass knocker, held between a brass lions Jaws, and smacked the knocker gently against the wooden door.

The knock rang clear in the void, however it did nothing to perturb the rhythmic ting that rang true in the ever present silence. After waiting a few seconds Alex raised his hand to knock again when the door swung open, ominously, on its own.

Alex stepped in fearlessly and began to look around, what stood before him was a cramped workshop, littered with tools and crumpled papers, detailing intricate weapons and armours. And the source of the Rhythmic ting that Alex now understood to be the sound of hammer meeting metal.

In what Alex assumed to be the forge of the workshop, a burly man was hammering away at a sword shaped slab of metal. His muscles bulged every time he raised his hammer and when he brought his hammer down, sparks danced along the cold, unfeeling metal in their frenzied ballet.

After a few hearty hammer swings, a roar, so deafening Alex felt his ear drums would burst. Out of the metal came a translucent beast, drool dripping from its horrific knife like teeth, its matted night black fur only marred by the fact you could see through it. The beast oozed a regal aura.

Suddenly the beast pounced at the man before becoming an ethereal energy. Within seconds the stream of energy had travelled from the mans left arm all the way to his hammer, proudly raised within his right arm.

Wrapping around the hammer, the energy eventually formed a swirling vortex around the head of the hammer. Images of roaring beast heads came out of the vortex every so often.

Raising the hammer high above his head, the man brought the hammer down upon the metal, letting out a blinding flash of light. When Alex recovered enough to see once more, he saw the man standing over a finished blade of black steel.

After admiring his work the man began to pour some molten metal into three separate casts, the bubbling liquid hissing and spitting all the way.

When the molds had cooled, the man broke them with his hammer to reveal a crude handle and two oblong slabs of metal. He produced a miniature hammer and a miniature chisel.

He began to chip away at the handle and slabs. Alex watched with interest as the man began to chisel Celtic patterns in the handle, and fashioned the slabs into two halves of a wolfs mouth.

After finishing with the creation of the decorations, The man began to affix the pieces together.

"Is watching me that interesting?" The man spoke in gruff, deep voice

Alex was taken aback by the acknowledgment of his existence. He had just assumed that this was a pre-rendered cutscene, and he was a non-entity.

"not really"

"well at least your patient, and for that, you deserve at least something"

A screen appeared Infront of Alex.

[The first beast forger offers you a prize, do you accept]

"If you insist"

"Then take your pick"

[Pick one of the following prizes:

The beast forgers tool belt

The beast forgers fire

The beast forgers apron

The beast forgers anvil]

Alex thought for a moment, then made his choice.

"Beast forgers tool belt"

To him, the apron was to aesthetically unappealing and the anvil only helped with metal work, same could be said for the fire. The tool belt seemed like it came with all the tools needed for crafting so it was the most useful pick.

"It holds a lot of sentimental value to me, so don't lose it"

"Sure thing, I'll make sure no harm comes to it"

The first beast forger gave Alex a smile before shoving him out of the workshop.

"Was nice meeting you my successor but now I have weapons to make, come back and visit when you can"

He put on friendly airs but when Alex was out of the room the door was slammed into his face.

Once more the world dissolved all around Alex.

When he came to his senses he was back in the library.

"What was that?"

"That was a gift given to the first one to gain a class, its an incentive for players to explore as many class options as they can. Well anyway, lets move on to the race selection"