Tales of the Pearly City (Pearly Tales Vol.1) [Completed]

1. Calloway's new old home.

Tales of Yggdrasil, a game synonymous with greatness. For ten years it was the most influential VRMMO-RPG, or Virtual Reality Massive Multi-player Online Role Playing Game, on the market. It's a massively extensive and popular fantasy based adventure game whose gaming setup allowed it's players a near completely immersive virtual reality experience.

Calloway was a gamer whose sense of adventure was captured by Tales of Yggdrasil's numerous possibilities. For instance, the level cap was 100 but classes allowed only a max level of 15. This meant that in order to reach level 100 you had to master a minimum of 7 classes. With over 1000 base classes, like Rouge or Knight, and subclasses, like Assassin or Holy Paladin, the combinations were limitless.

With a total run of 10 years Calloway joined a few years after the launch, but was soon caught up in its realism. Shortly into his gaming experience he was recruited by the High Elves of the North Wind, a guild made up of gamers who had chosen the race of elf in some regard. At the time Calloway had been leveling up his druid ranks and as an elf he had stood out enough to join.

Unlike Knights who defended their comrades in battle, or Archers who took opportunity shots to do tons of damage, Druids were supporting units who healed their comrades or wielded the natural elements like manipulating vines or lighting powered magic attacks. Clerics or Priest were similar supporter classes but owe the origin of their magic to gods where Druids drew on the nature powers of the earth.

Shortly upon joining he learned that the guild was one of the top guilds in the game and that being able to join had been considered a great honor especially since his level at the time was so low. Yet when he entered the great fortress of the North Wind that acted as the guild's headquarters he was introduced to a concept that took the cake for him. It was the ability to create within the game.

From that moment on Calloway became engulfed with the fortress. It was relatively small at first with a minor nobility of NPC's, or non-player characters, at the figurative head of the social order. Since the guild was so famous the fortress had been complete with the minimum defensives required to hold up against any raids from other guilds or random adventurers. Since the member roster was so prestigious it was easy enough to defend with only the basics, but Calloway saw the untapped potential of the fortress.

Guilds claimed fortresses to gain resources and benefits from the regain to grow stronger either by the wealth or natural resources, geographical location for trading, or in the North Wind's case the plethora of strong monsters in the local region for fighting to level up. Guilds with and without fortresses often fought over them or sacked them for quick resources. Assaulting a Guild fortress with a large force was an action formally called a raid.

Raids were simple and there were three kinds. Raids were player-centric campaigns where numerous players gathered together to achieve a goal, anywhere from three to thousands. A regular raid involved conquering a highly populated dungeon of high level monsters, and one super powerful boss monster at the end. They were usually too hard to do alone and they also generated valuable rewards, depending on the difficulty.

Guild raids targeted guild fortresses in place of a dungeon. The players of an opposing guild or independent force sieges the fortress and either gathers as many resources as they can pillage, or they can replace the NPC figure head with their own to conquer it and take it over completely.

Event Raids were the third kind and were usually hosted by the developers. They were many times harder than normal raids and were only available for a limited time. The biggest draw of event raid were their unique and often priceless rewards for their completion. Even more valuable rewards could be received if the hidden and often secretive Optional quests requirements were fulfilled.