Incoming whisper from Renma.

[Yo, Pras bro, where are you?]

The sudden call from Renma broke Tier from his clouded mind. He quickly turned around and galloped towards Kallak who stopped because his distance and Tier was too far. Both of them continued their way through the passes between massive cliffs.

“Impossible," Tier sighed to himself. He then touched his cheekbone with his right index and middle finger followed by a reply to his friend, “Command on: reply. Sorry, on my way there, gotta follow an NPC first to get through the labyrinth.”

[Oh... I didn’t remember there was an NPC that could guide you, I just followed the people around here.]

Tier thought for a moment. It might be rather annoying to many players if only loremasters were being guided by NPC due to the quest. However, knowing the tendencies of his friend, Tier wondered if the option for Kallak to guide players might always be there but without the quest bonus. It was just that Renma didn’t see or bother asking before. If one day came where he was not feeling lazy, Tier might opt to check it out.

“I just saw a profession’s quest mark then followed.”

[Whoa, you took a profession already? I didn’t even think about it yet.]

“Loremaster,” Tier answered, “should be helpful for leveling, giving a slight EXP buff….”

[Only EXP? I think you shouldn’t waste your profession for just EXP buff, we would make it just fine, bro.]

“I’m not done yet, dumbass. It also gives knowledge on the opponent, could give slightly better material drop rate, also slight damage done buff and such.”

[Now we’re talking. Sounds good enough for me. Anyway, I’ll wait near the gate. There are some cool duels here, you gotta see this.]

“Alright, see ya there.”

Tier continued his journey with Kallak who apparently didn't pick the route that was taken by many players. Kallak also started to tell him a lot of stuff about the Cliff Labyrinth like how to study the contour, where each path would end up, about secret passages, as well as the long story of why orcs created a city here.

“I think you already knew, my brother. We orcs were once tribes living in the savannah until Tjokkor united us under one banner with demonic influence. It led us to a bloody and dark path through war with elves and humans. We were drowned in malicious lust for blood and death....”

“It was Valrosh the mighty and the wise Wang’gar, one of your ancestors, that finally broke us out from such a curse. But sins, be sins, my brother. Blood be blood. We can’t run away from our sins because the humans and elves were on our tail looking for revenge. I can’t blame them, we were the ones making mistakes. But they were keen to destroy all of us, even those who did not join our bloody campaign, thus we built our new home here, away from those seeking revenge.”

“Behold, the gate of Valroshar!”

Kallak exclaimed as they reached a huge pass where all other passes in the cliffs met, it led westward towards a massive wall and gate whose height rivalled the cliffs on each of its sides. Sharp stone edges were fashioned outwards on the top of the walls. There were six pentagonal towers spread across the wall. Catapults and ballistas were stationed ready on top of the walls. The rough majesty of Valroshar was emboldened by the banners of orc and rakhs symbols as well as the massive carvings in the shape of a giant axe and spear.

Kallak continued as he pointed towards the carvings, “That was Garun, the mountain splitter, and Rang’kah, the earth piercer. They were the weapons of Valrosh and Wang’gar.”

While approaching the gate, Tier saw players were mingling around the trenches and barricades made from giant sharpened woods. Like what Renma had told him, a lot of players were testing their strengths with honourable duels. No one is killed in such a duel for the winner will be decided when the opposing player reaches 1 HP instead of 0.

Near the gate’s entrance, Tier saw hooded rakhs wrapped in simple cloth. He had sky blue skin and ivory bones which were shorter than most rakhs. When Tier waved at him, he took off his tribal mask - a priest only equipment - then grinned and thus made a similar annoying impression to the real world Ega.

“Farewell my brother,” said Kallak as he started to leave towards the cliff’s entrance, “may our races always be siblings in blood and honour.”

Knowledge acquired. 

“That’s the NPC you told me about?” Renma asked.

“Yup, pretty cool guy. He told me a lot of stuff about this cliff and the orc’s history.”

“More importantly, how the hell did you get to level 35?”

Renma’s second question made Tier confused until he looked back at Renma and realised his friend was still level 32.

“Perhaps because of my profession?” Tier answered perfunctorily.

“I think it is because you played too much, and here I thought Fathan was already insane with his playtime.”

“Come on,” Tier snorted, “it was semester break anyway. And I think it won’t be a burden if I am not too far behind in level.”

“You are not a burden even if you are level 1,” Renma sighed, “first and foremost, we are here to play together.”

“Okay, okay, I got it.”

Tier lied to avoid further questioning. Again, he still didn’t feel right if his level was too low.

“By the way…” Renma changed the topic quickly, “I saw something awesome.”

He pointed at some level 80 players who were gathering around two players dueling. “That guy, Tsalazar, is awesome,” Renma continued.

“A priest?”

“Undead priest, also Discipline path.”

Tier frowned questioningly at Renma. “Also discipline? Is that the holy magic based healer path?”

Renma scratched softly the nose part of his mask, thinking for a while before answering, “Well, we have atonement and discipline, both are kinda for healers. But Discipline is more towards controlling your mana consumption and shields.”

“Then it is harder but not necessarily better?”

“Well….”

Tier smirked when he saw his friend was rather cornered on the argument. Nevertheless he didn’t feel it was foolish thinking regarding the shield, “I thought you were gonna say that mitigating damage is better than healing.”

“Ah… yes! That’s what I was trying to say, hahah.”

Renma then gestured for them to look at Tsalazar. The priest was fighting a rogue, which in many games is usually a very bad matchup for spellcasters. Tier guessed that it should be the same in Zurefgar. Here, even a hunter also seemed to be a bad matchup for caster to fight against. It would be definitely worse for them to fight rogues.

However, that was not what Tier saw in Tsalazar’s duel. The holy powered priest, who wore an eerie dark robe with a crowlike mask and feathers on his shoulder pads, was apparently able to hold his ground despite the relentless assault from his adversary.

His opponent, a dark skinned female human rogue named Sami, was not shabby either. In fact, Sami did seem like a very seasoned rogue. Her movements were swift both in attack and dodging. She even evaded an instant offensive holy spell from Tsalazar, a thing that Tier didn’t know was possible. Sami was also seen performing a lot of animation cancel between her attacks to increase the number of attacks she could dish out within a few seconds, causing an already fast assault even deadlier.

A normal priest or spellcaster would be beaten in seconds. But as Renma said, Tsalazar was something else entirely.

Tier didn’t really know the exact abilities being used by Tsalazar, but the priest was able to heal himself and damage Sami at the same time when his spell hits. Sometimes, his shield also exploded when being attacked.

He also had a lot of ways of creating shields. One that Tier found most interesting was that Tsalasar was able to deflect attacks by using some sort of small light shield created on his hand. The sight reminded Tier of something about Renma.

“I think you can try to use that kind of ability,” He said, “use your wushu thingy in the game.”

“It’s not that easy, alright, Tsalazar just made it look easy,” Renma sighed, “from what I heard, Tsalazar was the best holy based priest around, also a division leader in Clasing Realms.”

“A division leader?”

“Archangel Form: Michael!”

Their discussion was interrupted by Tsalazar’s shout. The undead priest’s body was engulfed in bright holy flames, deterring Sami from attempting to attack. Tsalazar’s body twitched madly as if experiencing intense pain, before the body turned to ash which then unleashed a spectral form of an radiant angel clad in majestic plate armour, wielding spears with blades made from crystal.

“Able to force you to use this form, I guess I got a little bit better,” Sami commented. She dashed forward and in an instant and created two mirage copies of herself. If Tier was not mistaken, that was an ability exclusive to human rogues.

“Come on, you have always been a great rogue,” Tsalazar complimented as he turned on the offensive. “Though I won’t lie that you could still be better.”

The battle turned from a priest versus rogue into something similar to a paladin versus a rogue. Tsalazar’s archangel form was able to pressure Sami with a flurry of holy spells. With a swift strike of dozens of light spears, Sami finally yielded.

Tier, Renma, and other players who watched the duel applauded the two players for fighting so greatly. However, the loud clapping and cheering had made Tier and Renma not realise that they were standing a bit in the way of Valroshar’s entrance.

“Hey, buzz off, noob!”

Tier and Renma are suddenly being pushed aside, crashing to the walls of Valroshar. The culprit was a female orc shaman named Lyra. 

Seeing the yellow flag next to her name, Tier knew this person had a bad reputation among orcs and rakhs. Thus, he tried to avoid conflict, “Sorry, we weren’t looking.”

“Oh, being distracted by that showoff priest? You noobs thought that sorry is enough?” Lyra fumed threateningly. Tier felt like the bear skin she wore as headdress was also staring angrily at him.

“What if…” a messy-haired undead male rogue with a voice so familiar suddenly leaped closer to them. Slicer, the rogue, brandished his daggers at Tier and Renma and continued, “... I scalp you TRASH and make your life here a living hell so you can just HANG YOURSELF in the real world to be less of a burden for your momma?”

You better off yourself, trash.

Tier froze. If his mind weren’t playing tricks on him, he knew exactly who had that voice and intonation. Both his mind and body trembled, a nauseating mixture of fear and rage swell within him. He tried so much to walk away from his past just to be forced to face it again now.

Slicer was probably Slasher.