Chapter 9

Jack is unaware of anything that's going on within the game world, he had spent the time posting on the private forums correcting people misinformation regarding elves. People insisted that there were no dark elves and that there is a 'World Tree' within the game world somewhere.

According to Arwen's information, Dark Elves do truly exist but are rarely seen as they're openly discriminated against and often taken as slaves. The 'World Tree' doesn't exist but the 'Holy Tree' is actually a brand off an ancient world tree. It will grow to a 'World Tree' over millions of years but within 'The Secret World Online' it does not exist.

Soon after posting that response, the original poster quickly launched into a tirade about how Jack "doesn't know anything" with several other people joining in which really killed Jack's motivation for continuing to post on these forums.

Another interesting topic he discovered buried under the quick moving topics full of useless information was the points that people were able to acquire from the 'Hall of Trials', Jack felt like posting his own score but as he was about to, he remembered the words of Tom about keeping it private so he only perused the topic.

Several people described their encounter, a few people had to kill hordes of creatures and undead, some people had to lead their nation through civil strife, some people had to forge a divine weapon or create some new magic but all of them had the final test of resisting the charms of many beautiful women.

The highest score that was posted by someone was a measly '40,000' which is a big contrast to Jack's '28387433', most people only had to go through at most two stages compared to Jack's several which raises a few questions but no one can answer them.

As time progresses, Jack quickly finds himself yawning and looking at the time it's nearly sunrise. He climbs into bed and within no time at all, snores away.

*KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK*

Jack is abruptly woken up from his dreams of a happy life with Jessica and for some reason, the white snake from the trial. Groggily he steps over to the door and opens it up.

"Next time you're going to leave the house all day, let us know if you're expecting a visitor" one of his other roommates says, passing Jack a rather thick envelope. Jack isn't able to really respond and just lets out a "Thanks" while he takes the envelope.

The roommate trudges off muttering under his breath about Jack being a disrespectful idiot. Jack takes a quick look at the envelope as he usually hates to open up anything like this. 'INSURANCE AND LIABILITY CONCERNS' looking at the first page, it's just information about his workplace and turning over the page 'COSMIC BACKGROUND NOISE AND THE MESSAGES FROM THE OUTER RIM', it's another thing that doesn't seem relevant to him so he just sets it down and head out for breakfast.

There's no one in the kitchen this time so he can gather his cereal in peace and jumps back onto the computer, not much has really changed since it has only been around 5 hours since he fell asleep. There's no new message from Tom but Jack decides to send him a message instead.

'Hey, I'd like to ask since you might know, what's the deal with that weird room with all the crystals on the ceiling when you enter and exit the game?'

He sends the message not expecting a reply but shortly it has a tick mark indicating that it has been read, Jack decides to wait a few minutes and check his work roster. He finally has a shift in 4 days, a night shift. After 5 minutes of waiting, there is no reply so Jack gives up and wants to log back into the game.

He lays down, placing the familiar crystal onto his forehead and his vision quickly shifts to the familiar room but before he could even take a look at the crystals on the ceiling, his vision shifts again back to his game character.

The last time he logged out, he was sleeping up against a wall in a well-protected cave with a few other people. So he is quickly surprised but not stunned that he is currently riding on the back of one of the horses. It's slowly trotting along, Fenrir seems to be passed out on one of the smaller horses.

Taking a look at his surroundings, he can see Sleipner carrying both Jessica and Arwen on its back both are hanging over the edges slumped over as though they're also passed out. He stops the Horse that he's riding and jumps down but quickly discovers that his whole body is aching and that he feels incredibly weak.

He stands up with great difficulty, supported by the horse but also notices that his clothes are missing, he's currently stark naked. Luckily, they're still in the forest and away from people or he'd be rather embarrassed to be caught in this state while being too weak to run away.

The horse he was riding has nothing on it, the only clothing left over is the jacket that Jessica was using as a blanket which is placed over her body. Jack lifts his foot, feeling exhausted and makes his way over to Sleipner incredibly slowly, almost falling over a couple of times. He finally reaches Sleipner with much difficult but as soon as his hand touches Sleipner, they're both given a shock of electricity, this wakes up both Arwen and Jessica.

Arwen is the first to react, he quickly jumps off Sleipner into a tree, looking at his surroundings and sees nothing familiar as they're not in the cave where they should have been. He looks down at Jack with a puzzled expression and sinks into the foliage disappearing. Jessica is trying to sit up on the horse but having difficulty, her face going beet red for some reason while hiding her eyes behind her hand but peeking through some gaps.

"Are you ok?" Jack asks out of concern, wondering why she's making this reaction.

Jessica just starts to mumble something that's unclear, Jack takes a few steps closer to her to which she finally pronounces loudly "CLOTHES!". Jack instantly feels like an idiot, he was trying to get the jacket off of Jessica but got distracted by the two of them waking up.

He reaches up and takes the jacket off that's covering Jessica, who is then pulled down to the ground with it. "Hey be more careful" she mutters with her face still crimson red. Jack just ignores her and puts the jacket on. It barely covers up to his mid-thigh so he's feeling rather naked still.

Moving forward a couple of steps, he reaches down and attempts to help Jessica up, she complies but Jack has a tough time even doing this with his sweat visible. She finally gets up but Jack also noticed somethings making noise in the jacket pocket.

Reaching into the pocket he pulls out several dark crystals and looking at them brings up their information screen:

Darkness Crystal – Shadow element – Grade: Stage 2

These crystals are formed by the accumulation of shadow qi.

Able to provide abundant shadow qi to anything the crystal is combined with.

Unsure how he acquired these, he has a suspicion that something happened with the shadow puppets while he was offline which makes him feel like an asshole, he left these two people to deal with a horrible situation by themselves.

He wanted to be the person to protect everyone, so that no one would have to worry behind him and they can live their life as they wish. He has already betrayed that wish because he thought he would get hungry in the real world. He slept on a nice lush bed while they were in a life and death struggle that he had no idea about.

He takes a deep breath and solemnly swears in his heart, next time he will never abandon anyone unless he truly has no other choice. He needs to be able to face the world with the confidence that he will be able to protect those he wants to protect and destroy the people he needs to destroy.

His mindset slowly changes and he decides that he's not happy just being a follower, he will be the one to stand out front and if anyone says otherwise, they either need to get out of the way or step behind and tow his line.

Jessica is just sitting there watching Jack in silence, her face slowly turning back to its normal shade she leans over and gives Jack a hug.

"I'm sorry I wasn't here" Jack whispers into Jessica's ear. Jessica's spine gets a chill down it, this is the first time anyone has apologised to her in this fashion. Her eyes quickly tear up, "It's ok, you saved us" she replies trying to hold back her tears.

They stand together in the hug for a few minutes, taking a look around they're still within the forest and up on a nearby tree is sitting Arwen with his eyes closed, he looks like he has taken a load off his mind but clearly sad.

"You certainly surprise me but I didn't want to interrupt you two lovers" Arwen says in an almost sarcastic tone. Jack merely grins while Jessica backs away with a red face and heads over to Fenrir to see if it's awake yet.

Scratching his head, Jack asks "What happened?" as he honestly has no idea, the last time he somehow got to a town and some drama happened so he's hoping that something stupid didn't happen considering he was naked when he woke up.

"You tell me" Arwen says opening his eyes up, peering directly into Jacks'.

"I honestly do not know, after I logged back in after leaving last night I was on horseback riding through this forest and then shortly after you guys woke up" Jack responds truthfully.

Arwen takes a long look into Jack's eyes, making him feel nervous as if he said or did something wrong that he has no knowledge of. After a few long moments, Arwen closes his eyes again.

"The shadow puppets are gone; I don't know about their leader but I no longer feel any of my kinsmen nearby so it's time for me to leave" he then jumps down from the tree walking over to Jack.

He starts to reach into his robe and pulls out a rather long flute made out of wood. He then hands it to Jack, who also receives it but Arwen quickly grabs Jack's hand and takes a look at his palm with a serious expression.

"Why do you have shadow qi on your hands?" Arwen asks abruptly. Jack reaches into his jacket pocket and pulls out several of the darkness crystals, Arwen quickly grabs them and inspects them one by one.

Suddenly he starts laughing while holding a particular crystal, "The gods haven't abandoned our love, Myra my love I knew you couldn't abandon me." he says with tears appearing in the corners of his eye.

Jack peers at the crystal that is in Arwen's hand and brings up the information:

Darkness Crystal – Shadow element – Grade: Stage 3

These crystals are formed by the accumulation of massive shadow qi.

Able to provide abundant shadow qi to anything the crystal is combined with.

There is a wisp of residual tormented female elf soul.

Jack's eyes go wide upon reading the information, he feels glad that Arwen is able to have some good news after a terrible situation. Arwen quickly gathers his thoughts and returns to his usual stoic, eyes closed look but with a clear happy expression on his face.

"You don't mind if I take this crystal do you?" he asks while placing the crystal within his robe not waiting for a response.

"No go ahead and take it, I hope you two can be reunited soon" Jack replies not really knowing what to say, this situation is entirely new to him.

"Haha, it wont be easy but there's a chance, Myra we may be reunited soon"

Jessica can also hear what's going on and has a big smile on her face but she doesn't interrupt the two talking. Arwen then quickly explains the flute that he just handed Jack.

It's a flute carved from a fallen branch of the 'Holy Tree', it's able to be heard from across a whole region and it is primarily used to contact people far away or animals that are trained to listen for it. Such as the eagle that Arwen keeps flying around as a scout.

It also has a special attachment to Arwen so he will be able to sense when it is being used, Jack takes a look at the information regarding the flute.

[Holy Tree Flute] – Grade: Blue Stats: Charm+1, Description: A fallen branch that has been carved into a flute by the elf Daeharice Naeryndam Sinnafain Arwen Uthorim. Able to be heard across 50,000km.

Jack nods his head as he reads it finally learning what Arwen's full name is. He then shortly places the Flute away in his jacket and Jessica converges with them. They quickly say their goodbyes.

"Take care, I hope to see you again" Jessica says.

"You take care too, watch out for this guy he's full of surprises" Arwen responds while slipping her a small parcel. Jack pretends not to notice this and steps forward to shake Arwen's hand. Arwen hasn't done this before and shakes Jack's hand vigorously.

"You make sure to take care and visit us in the Holy White Dragon Empire in the future" Jack says while revealing a bit too much information.

"I'll be sure to visit it when I can in the future, hopefully Myra will be with me and you will see her in her true form and not that twisted shadow" Arwen says with a smile, not minding the painful memory of his loved one being twisted like that.

He then quickly leaves disappearing into the foliage, the Eagle lets out a screech as it flies away.

"He has a pretty good exit, I'm jealous" Jack mutters to himself.

"What was that?" Jessica asks. Jack's response, "Nothing…." feeling slightly embarrassed.

They then both turn to the animals and prepare to set out on their journey again.

Fenrir is still fast asleep, probably faking being asleep so it doesn't have to walk.

The two of them climb onto the back of Sleipner and make their way through the forest and soon come upon a clearing, in the middle of the clearing there is a strange orb hovering just above the ground gathering a massive amount of heaven & earth energy.

Jack jumps off the back of Sleipner by now he's feeling somewhat normal, albeit weaker than usual he can stand like normal. He reaches his hand out and touches it with the information appearing before his eyes:

[Den – Lightning Scaled Horse]: (Primary exp 2600/5000), Grade: Blue, Description: The Den of Lightning Scaled Horses, spawns 1 Lightning Scaled Horse every 2-3 days.

A prompt appears before him, 'Do you wish to acquire or destroy this den? Please note destruction will only provide 50% of acquired exp'

Jack presses on acquire and the den is placed within his hand, it feels like a crystal ball with no weight behind it. They quickly finish up here and head to the wolf den to do the same.

[Den – Grey Wolf]: (Primary 1000/5000), Grade: White, Description: The Den of Grey Wolves, spawns 2-4 Grey Wolves per day.

Jack again acquires it and by now Fenrir is awake and running around trying to gather all the newly spawned wolves. The horses certainly don't like this but they'll get their revenge in time.

Jack puts away the den into his jacket, jumps back onto Sleipner and the group makes their way to the main road. The wolves are following closely but hidden so as to not scare people.

While on the main road, the group gathers a lot of attention on them, mostly because no one has seen a Lightning Scaled horse before and several merchants won't take no as an answer to selling one of them.

The group quickly gets away from these people and proceed down south towards the Lake that Jack wants to finally set up his city at.