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

3. Meeting Peter

                After pulling himself back into the treehouse he sat down and started talking to himself.

"okay, calm down this is obviously a dream. Which means if it is... I could do this."

He scrolled through his mind menus and reequipped his clothes. In a dull flash of light his cleric raiment was replaced with a long flowing cloak, and various other pirate-like clothes from his days as a swashbuckling rogue when he started the game.

It was equipment he'd maintained and upgraded as he leveled up but never wore while in the city.

If this were a dream he'd at least like to see a few things besides this tree house before he woke up. Back in his early days with the guild this was one of his first experimental hideaways before he was able to augment the entire city.

Since then it had seen little use but... he looked for the hidden compartment and found it completely untouched and yet aged just like the rest of the treehouse. It didn't have anything valuable in it besides his old tricorn and an eye patch.

He laughed at the nostalgia and put them both on for old times sake. The hat gave him dreadlocks and the eyepatch created a scar illusion of the eye it was placed. It was a flawless recreation of his first days of Tales of Yggdrasil.

Satisfied with his nostalgic gear he leapt from the broken window of the treehouse and began his journey toward his city. He felt light as a feather and pulled out his old cutlass and swung it around to test some of his old moves.

[backstab] [dash] [pirate's fury] [krakens grasp] and so on.

He felt his stamina bar deplete and slowly regenerate just like it would in the game when he used the moves and rested. Of course he had many more moves that he could try out but his chuuni only stretched so far after he remember his embarrassing proposal to a now nonexistent gathering of data.

When he approached the entrance of the city it was in a different place than he remembered. The city itself seemed bigger than it was just a few hours ago. The styles of buildings and clothes were also different. In his mind he was certain that it was the Pearly City, but everything around him was different from what he remembered. There was a greater concentration of Elves and Demi-humans, there was even a few regular humans.

When he walked through the gates a guard stopped him long enough to verify that he was an elf.

"Name, and purpose for visit?" the guard asked following a taxing procedure that he'd been following all day. Jasper, now Calloway, was mildly perturbed and slightly excited that he didn't recognize him.

"Cal of the Western Shore, I'm sightseeing." It was the honest truth too. Cal was short for Calloway and when he started Tales of Yggdrasil he spawned in the elven nation often referred to the West Shore since most of it cities were port towns.

"Western Shore? Just how old are you Cal?"

"Oh, come on, you know it's never polite to ask a girl for her age." He fluttered his eyelashes.

"You do realize that I'm a city guard, right?" he said unamused by Calloway's humor.

Calloway's charm gave way to a show of boredom as he cleaned his ear with his pinky. "Well, between my travels and the rum I don't keep track of the time very well. Tell me what age it is, and I might be able to tell you mine."

He actually found some wax, wow this dream is thorough. He flicked it off his finger and cringed when it landed on a merchant's hat as he walked by. Okaaay, maybe he was acting too casual.

The guard had seen everything and rubbed his eyes. "They don't pay me enough for this." He sighed. "We are in the third age of Lady Dravenkin, we are nearing the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the great ones migration and lady dravenkins engag-"

"Wait. Third age? And what is 'The Great Ones Migration?' Just how long have I been gone?" Calloway was taken aback, an age was a hundred years. When he met Shayley... "You mean Shayley O'heira Van Dravenkin the first, right?"

The guard nodded slowly, he was more confused now than before.

When he met Shayley she was in her first age... with the math that means... shit this was an elaborate dream. Well it was just a dream so he could roll with it. If his character was almost 124 years old by the time he met Shayley who was... 102 at the time. If he was 22 years older than her and she started ruling when she was 100... DDAAAHH MATH!!!

"I guess I'm close to three hundred and Seventy something... God I've been gone longer than I was ever around." Calloway checked his age... he should have just started there. "Can I go now?"

"Ya sure, you're giving me a headache just move along sir." The guard waved him along.

Calloway decided it was best to get some more information before he started wandering around the city. He went to a nearby tavern in order to talk to the owner which he hoped that he still knew.

"Ahoy," Calloway sat down at the bar. The tavern owner's name was Peter and luckily Calloway recognized the elf from back when he overhauled the city.

"What can I get for you, stranger?"

"First I'm looking for some information. I want to see if my money's still good seeing as I've been at sea for a good long time."

"I'm no money changer, but I can at least tell you if it's worth a drink."

Calloway scrolled through his inventory in his mind and selected a gold. Gold pieces were the only currency in Tales of Yggdrasil so it made things easy to pay for across the game. Because of how long he had played mixed with all the grinding he had a couple million stored in his inventory and more than one hundred times that in the guild treasury.

"How many of these for a drink?" He slid the gold across the counter and the man's eyes nearly popped out of his skull.

"A real gold piece, I haven't seen one of these for over 200 years!"

"Ya I've been out of touch."

"I'll say, one of these could buy my entire business." He picked up the gold piece and inspected it. "Where did you get this? Only monsters killed by adventurers drop Gold coins like this. There hasn't been many adventurers around these parts since the migration of the great ones!" He placed the gold coin on the counter and looked at Calloway with a hint of fear. "Just who are you Stranger?"