Blades of Honor

Chapter Four

Lilia logged off for the day, having to get ready for class soon. Unlike JiYeong, Lilia had decided to go to grad school, going to school to become a doctor. It didn't surprise JiYeong that her best friend wanted to be someone who healed people both in and out of the game.

She promised to message JiYeong later when her first class was over. JiYeong told her that she'd be on all day, although she paused to put her bowl in the kitchen sink and grab a cup of juice.

When she returned to her computer she noticed she had a new message. She sank into her chair, opening her inbox and seeing that the message was actually an event that was taking place.

"Hm. I don't remember seeing a new patch." JiYeong muttered to herself, looking over the quest. Usually when there were new events or server wide quest, there was a patch and an announcement to get players ready. It was strange that the quest came into her inbox and not at an npc.

JiYeong figured the game must have patched when she logged on yesterday and she didn't notice since she was on facebook while it was loading in the background.

She made a small noise, reading over the quest information.

Lady JiYeong,

"Lady?" JiYeong hummed, raising an eyebrow.

The Kingdom of Criesal, and all of Allumia is in danger. We are imploring you to join us in defending our Kingdom, and protecting our citizens. Should you chose to accept, we ask you to come to Whitewall and speak with Queen Alleria for more information.

Accept | Decline

JiYeong ran a hand through her hair, grunting when she realized it was still braided and her fingers snagged on the hair. This was a strange quest, but she accepted it anyway, curiosity getting the better of her.

She warped to Whitewall, looking around the town a bit. The city was how one would expect a main city to look in a game. Whitewall  was the central city and starting point for most human adventurers, and one of the largest and most populated cities in Allumia. While it is majority human occupied, a plethora of other races inhabit it as well.

Whitewall housed several Sects, as did all of the major cities of Allumia. Most notably, the Warrior's Sect, where many train to join the Sacred Hearts as Knights and Crusaders, serving to protect the Queen, or the Black Guard as Paladins and Archers. It was where JiYeong had started the game, having started as a Knight before moving her way up to Guardian. 

There were lesser Sects located within Whitewall as well. Like most cities, there was the Merchant Sect, where the majority of a city's trades was handled. There was also the Builder Sect, where one could learn to become an Architect or Carpenter. And lastly the Culinary Sect, where some of the Kingdom's greatest Culinarians were trained.  

It was also surprisingly empty for there being an event quest happening right now. 

Unless...maybe it wasn't a server wide quest. It was possible for it to be a new quest line for her Guardian class, though she still should have seen notes or something about it. That would make sense, it being class specific, since the letter was asking for her help defending the realm. JiYeong assumed there would be some kind of war. 

It was weird how vague the letter was, though. Usually if there was a new quest, the initial instructions gave more information than what she'd been afforded.

Before heading to the castle, JiYeong stopped by a merchant to sell some of her unneeded and unusable items, freeing up some slots in her inventory. She'd learned early on that it was better to have extra space in your inventory, especially if you were starting a new quest. Unless specifically stated by the quest giver, it was hard to tell if you would get items for rewards, or if you would have to gather items during the quest.

When she was done selling she walked to the castle, still surprised at the lack of players around. If it were a new Guardian quest line, there would at least be some players of the same class around getting the quest as well.

"Strange." She muttered, moving her character to the NPC guarding the entrance to the castle. She clicked through the options given to her to get access into the castle, and waited for her character to load into the new screen.

Queen Alleria stood near her throne, and when JiYeong clicked on her, the NPC icon had a worried expression. This didn't give her much new information though, only telling her there was a possible threat to Allumia and that JiYeong was needed to help defend the realm. It didn't give any specifics, but JiYeong accepted anyway.

The picture of Alleria changed to one of a relieved expression, and JiYeong was instructed to go to the Obsidian Outpost, and there she would meet with a few of Alleria's allies who would give JiYeong a better breakdown of what was happening, and what she would do to help.

JiYeong left the castle, opening her map to check the distance from Whitewall to Obsidian Outpost. It wasn't far at all, so she decided to ride a mount instead of warping there.

She opened her inventory, double clicking on her mount whistle. A large black horse with grey hooves and midnight blue streaks in its main ran onto the screen. JiYeong had named the horse YeongGi due to the blue in its main, and as a play on her own name. It was the first mount she'd gotten from a dungeon and the one she used the most often.

The ride to Obsidian Outpost took two minutes at the most. Though the moment the words 'Obsidian Outpost' came onto JiYeong's screen, the game crashed.

She frowned, clicking on the icon to open it again. The game almost never crashed; she'd invested quite a bit of money building a computer strong enough to handle playing the game. JiYeong tried re-logging into the game, but it gave her a system error and forced closed itself. After trying a couple more times she sighed and called it quits.

After turning off her computer, she decided to order a pizza and watch a few episodes of a show on Netflix she'd found. She was on the third season, having binge watched the first two in one weekend. She shuffled into the living room, turning on Netflix and going to the show, dialing the number for the pizza place as she did.

About half an hour into the first episode, there was a knock on the door.

JiYeong paused the show, climbing off the couch and going to answer the door, paying the pizza man and taking the box with her to her couch.

She ate about half the pizza and made it through about four episodes before realizing it was late and she should probably go to bed because she had work in the morning.

With a groan she turned off the TV, going to put the pizza in the fridge and getting ready for bed.