Mark stood in the grassy field holding the flower blade he had named the Foxe's Teeth,- looking at Detrei. "Yes, Detrei, I'm always ready to help." Mark said as he held his blade high like a knight swearing an oath of fealty. For a moment, Detrei just looked at him with a grateful smile.

  "Thank you, young warrior. Then I shall tell you of my displeasure. I have need of you to come to the aid of one of the hill fortresses that are under siege from those that have been twisted into Hargal's undead creations." Detrei said in a serious tone as she looked at Mark for a moment. "So will you still answer my plea now that you know what it is?" Detrei asked once more, being sure now that Mark knew what he had gotten into.

  "Yes, I'm not backing out now." Mark said in a firm tone, his gaze unflinching as he stared back into Detrei's eyes, holding his blade tight. Detrei simply nodded at his determination before she began to speak once more.

  "While then before you can go to aid one of my people's hill fortresses, you will need armor so that a lucky slash does not destroy your temporary body." Detrei said as once again a table appears with several seeds on it. Now knowing how this works from making Foxe's teeth mark, I grabbed one of the seeds at the edge of the table. Once it was in his hand, a green status screen once again popped up showing him the seed's status.

  Broccoli is a type of vegetable commonly grown for its nutritional value. It looks like a small bundle of light green trees that will grow yellow flowers if left alone long enough. - not modified base form current trait: green blood

  "Okay, I guess I wasn't as ready as I thought. Um, Detrei, last time with the foxtail, it simply had grain as a trait, but now there's something called the green blood as a trait, which sounds a bit more advanced. Would you mind explaining how this works exactly?" Mark asked, looking confused and helpless about how to make sense of a blood trait coming from broccoli of all things.

  "I would be happy too, young warrior. You see, sometimes you will not have to modify traits to be more of an advantage like you did with the grain trait. This time broccoli has several health benefits that have combined into a healthy trait when used for a defensive item. You simply have to press on the trait in the status screen for it to tell you what the trait does exactly." Detrei explained to Mark, who understood and pressed on the green blood trait to see what it did.

  Green blood—limited to armor, this ability allows the armor to act as an emergency second heart, pumping in green blood to mitigate damage from blood loss. The amount of armor with the green blood trait determines how much bleeding can be countered.

  Mark was rather happy to see that the trait added a rather powerful healing effect. Apparently once he finally made the armor from the broccoli seed, he wouldn't have to fear death by a thousand cuts. Though making broccoli into armor seemed to be a bit difficult as it was not easy to imagine broccoli as armor. So for a little while he just stared at the broccoli floating in the 3D box, trying to imagine shaping it into armor with no luck until finally it came to him.

  Detrei watched the young warrior struggle for a while. She was about to suggest he try a different seed when suddenly he spoke. "Chain mail!" Mark yelled out all of a sudden as he suddenly began to crisscross the fuzzy branches at the top of the broccoli that was in the 3D editor before he began to flatten it, having the root reinforce the tied-together branches, leaving him with a small piece of bright green chain fabric made entirely out of broccoli before he began to stretch it, not stopping until he had full-body chain mail.

  Once Mark looked it over, making sure he had made it as accurate to chain mail as he could before he clicked done. That's when a congratulations screen with little confetti coming out of the screen along with the stats for his new armor appeared.

  "Hmmm, sure, I'll name it the green heart." Mark said taking inspiration from the fact it was always slightly pulsating and from the green blood trait. Though this was once again showing his lack of imagination.

  "While young warrior, just like your blade before, we shall test your armor." Detrei said as she waved her hand, and a copy of the armor appeared on a wooden dummy a fair distance away, and a few feet in front of the table appeared a strange horse with grey fur and huge stone hoofs as well as a horn that was as long as a lance. The unicorn seemed to be a mix of a unicorn and a boulder.

  This unicorn quickly began to charge at a signal from Detrei and quickly closed the distance to the dummy, piercing it with little resistance, disappointing Mark but impressing Detrei, who began to explain why. "You see, young warrior, the unicorn that just pierced your armor is called a catacomb smasher, and it is a powerful lancer horse commonly used to destroy crypts. So the fact your armor offered any protection against it showed it is quite durable indeed." Detrei said, still giving an appraising look at the armor.

  Mark was rather happy to hear that his armor had performed well after all. "So I have a weapon and I have armor. Am I ready to go and help the people of the land?" Mark asked Detrei, wondering if he now had everything he needed to go off and help the people of Allyssa.

  "Yes, my young warrior, you have what you need to battle the forces that lay siege to the fortress that my people now huddle in." Detrei said in a sad tone before she waved her hand in Mark's direction, and a strange circle went around him, and in a flash of light, he was gone. When the flash cleared and Mark could see again, he was in the middle of a fortress that was under attack from every side, with the screams of men and the smell of blood quickly overwhelming Mark. For a minute, Mark stood there overwhelmed before someone came over and shook him out of it.

  "Look alive, warrior!" A big, burly warrior yelled at Mark as he gripped him, shaking him for a second, bringing him out of his shock. "Good, there you are. I can see from the look in your eyes you've come back to us, and from the look of your gear, you're one of Detrei's chosen warriors, so you're coming with me to the northern gate." The big warrior holding a rather large scythe said as he pushed Mark toward one of the fortress gates, following right behind him.

  Eventually the two crossed the flat ground that made up the internal courtyard before reaching the walls where the screams and scent of death were the worst. Before Mark could lose his nerve from being bombarded by all the extreme stimuli, he was directed up the stone ladders by his new unknown friend. They both reached the top quickly, traversing the ladder and ending up next to the north gate if his friend was right.

  There he finally saw what he had been hearing and smelling from within the courtyard: dozens of men were desperately trying to hold back hundreds of undead. Each of the men manning the wall was standing a few meters away from each other to give themselves proper room for their scythes as they swung again and again at the undead climbing up the wall.

  Mark had a few precious seconds to take a good look at them before he would have to take his place on the wall. He was using this precious time to take in this undead threat from a safe distance and try and strategize a method for fighting them. As he was trying to come up with the best strategy, a stat window popped up for the undead.

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  Mark gave a quick read-through of the stat window, trying to take in as much of it as possible as quickly as possible. He was just about done reading the screen in the precious few seconds he had when his new friend with the large scythe roared and charged forward to help keep the honored undead from taking the walls.

  Mark raised his short sword and followed him, charging across the scant few meters that made up the wall's upper walkway to begin helping the few defenders getting in range of the honored dead. He quickly found himself face to face with the honored dead. Getting a good look at them, they looked exactly like the Detreon, except with gray-colored skin and a hole where he guessed their heart should be.

  Mark quickly got into a stance with his feet under him and his sword held firmly, ready to give a downward stroke to any undead that tried to kill him, and he was quickly tested as three leaped at him, the first going for his throat to rip it out with their strange hands, which seemed to have been stretched out, leaving loose, hardened skin with sharpened bone pointing out of the edge of their fingers.

  Mark was shocked for a moment as the smell of a rotting corpse hit him like a freight train, as well as the fact that these undead were moving far faster than media had ever shown undead to move before. Which meant when Mark took a few precious moments to recover from the rotting smell, the honored dead had closed in, one of them wrapping its hands around Mark's throat, its hand digging into his neck with sharpened bone, drawing blood as it began to choke him.

  Mark stood there shocked, hovering a few feet above the ground as he was being strangled as the other two honored dead came at him from the sides, coming to rip their pound of flesh out of his hide as he lay there helpless in their kin's grip. Just as Mark considered he was about to be killed by beginner mobs in the first battle, a loud whooshing sound came, and suddenly the three honored dead were decapitated in one swipe by the man that had led him up there, causing Mark to be freed from the hold of his strangler and falling to the ground.

  The man helped Mark up as Mark got his breath back and grabbed his blade from where he had dropped it. "I think you're a bit new to this, young warrior. So how about you follow me and I teach you the ropes? The large unknown warrior said to Mark, who merely nodded, ashamed that he'd been overwhelmed so easily. He was a hero in his own world, and while it had been a long time since he'd been called to fight, he should at least be able to defend himself for God's sake.

  Sadly, though, Mark had to push down his self-loathing at his dismal performance. As the man who had saved him and who'd showed him where to go, this entire battle began to wave him over to the wall once again as he actually gained a little distance from it in his struggle earlier with the three honored dead. So Mark quickly followed behind the man and once again manned the wall, except this time he did it in tedium with the man; after each swing of the man's scythe, he would rush forward to pierce the head of any honored dead the man hadn't decapitated.

  This went on for a long time as Mark found his rhythm, the start of it being the swing of the man next to him, then he stepped forward to close in on those that weren't killed by the swing of the scythe; Mark then quickly pierced them in their head with his fox teeth blade, ending the stragglers of the latest wave to try and overwhelm the wall and then stepping back to do it again. Mark found himself becoming a part of a machine meant to kill as many of the honored dead as possible as their bodies slowly built a small hill in front of the wall, making it easier for the honored dead to climb up the wall.

  For a moment, Mark was worried that they would be overwhelmed, but he quickly forgot about such things as he once again became a part of the machine and began to slay the honored dead trying to overwhelm the northern wall. This went on for what seemed like forever but also just a moment as Mark lost all sense of time. Eventually the waves of honored undead finally stopped coming, and Mark fell on his rear, gasping for breath.

  "Well lad, that's the last we'll see of them here at the northern gate. So once you get your breath back, we will go to the Western gate and help out there." Mark's guide and savior declared much to his chagrin, but eventually Mark got his second wind, and a few of the men on the northern wall followed him and his mentor to the western wall, and the others went to the eastern wall, leaving a small contingent to watch the north for the moment.

  So Mark once again found himself falling into the rhythm, becoming a part of the machine as he slowly found himself covered head to toe in blood and brain matter of the honored dead, though by the end of it he really didn't care as he was totally and completely exhausted, unable to move from his helping of the western gates defense, which was either another few hours of fighting or a whole day. Mark couldn't really tell; his sense of time was shot by this point.

  His mentor's shadow began to cover him, filling Mark with dread. "Sorry, sir, I don't have another fight in me right now. I need a bit more time before the next fight." Mark begged, which made him feel pathetic, but he had to be honest: he was exhausted and didn't have another fight in him right at that moment. He needed more than the few-minute breaks they had been going on so far.

  "Don't worry, young warrior; there's no new push on the walls. In fact, the honored seemed to have retreated, though they'll probably regroup to attack later, so you have more time to rest for now. Mmmmm, now that I think on it, I never told you my name. It's Faro, and now that I've told you mine, what's yours, my young warrior?"" Faro asked Mark in a jovial tone.

  " It's Mark, sir," Mark answered in a tired but happy tone as he fell over and began to just lay there dead to the world, just trying to conserve what little energy he had left. Faro took no offense at the lack of respect, especially considering that Mark probably didn't know he was the commander of the fort.

  Robert had watched the battle unfold as Detrei sent someone to go help defend the walls of one of her people's hilltop fortresses. He wasn't quite sure what to think about that because while he had made sure people coming into the game world wouldn't be in any real danger, he didn't want that immediately put to the test considering that technically they were still in what would be considered a tutorial phase for players.

  "Ah, that Detrei, who'd have thought that she was such a showman already, giving something for the viewers at home." Simon said ecstatic at the fresh, exciting footage for his ever-hungry viewers.

  "I get you're happy that you have something for your viewers, but I'm not exactly happy with having to test the safety functions of Allyssa so swiftly." Robert was a bit concerned over Detrei's lack of concern for the well-being of the players, though she probably just had too much faith in him and his system's working.

  "Oooh, my dear Robert, it looks like we're going to have a rather interesting guest that's going to arrive at the fort soon from the looks of it. Which will give us even greater footage." Simon said with excitement.

  Robert turned his full focus back on the fort to see that Simon was right. "When did Hargal send that out?" Robert said, shocked and worried that the fort could handle what was now heading their way.