The starting area for Dark Weavers was a large crypt with winding passages that would connect to various rooms at odd angles. It was filled with various Dark Weaver NPCs. In the lore, the goal of Dark Weavers was to weave a new fate, replacing the current weave of fate which dictated every action of the world. They wanted their new weave of fate to do away with death, such that no living being would ever die again.

They were not considered inherently evil; in fact, insofar as the game had ‘good’ and ‘evil’, both disliked Dark Weavers. This was because the game world had the concept of Demigods, who ruled over the world via their followers. These Demigods maintained the current weave of fate left behind the Gods when they abandoned the world. It was the current weave of fate which maintained their power as demigods, if it were destroyed or replaced then the Demigods could no longer rule.

Thus, the Demigods opposed the Dark Weavers directly, and would use their power to issue decrees against them to their followers, thus Dark Weavers had no choice but to live within a crypt. Of course, this was all lore, player Dark Weavers wouldn't suffer too badly from it, at most having higher requirements to ‘prove themselves’ to access certain quests.

There was actually another, secret aspect of lore, that players were known to the Demigods as ‘immortal beings’ that already existed outside the weave of fate, the Demigods were afraid that if they tried opposing players directly they would be overthrown for real, thus they instead decreed to their followers to integrate players into society and ‘learn the benefits of being chosen by the Demigods', which is the lie the Demigods said about the players to make them seem like they were there and powerful because of the Demigods in the first place.

Nobody knew this secret lore yet, not even Chan Si. Once it was revealed, it would surely have great ramifications.

In the starting area for Dark Weavers, there were countless tutorial quests centered around learning how to play the complex class. Of course, Pickapart planned to skip those, she already knew how to play from the videos she had watched and guides she had read, and the benefits were not worth her time. There was only one quest in the entire area she was going to do, and it was actually quite an important one.

Due to Dark Weavers' reliance on weaves for most things, it was usually good to have a backup plan in the form of a small weapon. The class did not even start with a weapon in its basic gear, which was common for spellcasting focused classes.

The quest was a special one, available only to Dark Weavers. It would teach them the basics of any one-handed weapon of their choice, immediately giving them the requisite basic skills, and also give them a cheap and rusted version of that weapon to begin with.

Chan Si would have a large body of her weapon skill needs handled by the True Totem Demon class once she logged into it, but there was one specific set of fundamentals that none of her classes granted, but which Chan Si wanted access to just in case, which was how to use a shield.

Shields were considered weapons even though they were used for blocking, because they took a weapon slot and could be used for low damage bashes. None of her classes had shield-based [Skills], but Chan Si wanted to make sure that if she ever ran into a sufficiently powerful or broken shield, using it would not be an issue due to her lack of experience.

Shields were further split into Tower Shields, Bucklers, Knight Shields, and Round Shields - the basic skills she'd achieve would have some crossover between them, but she would only have a solid foundation in the one she picked.

Tower Shields were the largest shields, wearing one would typically give various speed penalties to the user on top of the usual evasion penalty shields applied, but they would make up for it by greatly increasing defenses reliably. Chan Si knew she did not have the Physique on her Dark Weaver to use this type of shield, so she did not plan to use it.

Bucklers were conversely the smallest shields, they gave very small bonuses to defense and had the weakest attack, but had no penalties attached, they were popular for Reflexes based builds since it provided extra defense without impeding evasion.

Knight Shields and Round Shields were comparable middle option between bucklers and tower shields, applying only an evasion penalty, but they had a key difference. Knight Shields - which were kite shields in designs, but named Knight Shields in game - had better defense against magical damage, and Round Shields had better defense against physical damage. Tower shields were high in both, and bucklers were low in both, in comparison.

There was actually a class dedicated to using two tower shields, though it was considered a meme class that was bad at tanking despite using two shields. It was a class that Chan Si had looked closely into during her research, as she felt any class considered bad could possibly have some useful to her aspect that was overlooked by others, but no, the class was just trash, and Chan Si was unwilling to gamble an entire character choice on the possibility that some Legendary subclass would make it overpowered.

She couldn't count on stumbling into sheer brokenness, and would instead use her intelligence to analyze the best possibilities to take calculated risks.

In any case, between the four shield types, Chan Si did not plan to use either the Tower Shields or the Bucklers, so it was decision between the magical damage mitigation of the Knight Shield or the physical damage mitigation of the Round Shield.

Although Knight Shields would be more useful to her other characters if they started using shields, Chan Si merely wanted the option and did not plan to actively use shields most of the time, so chose the Round Shield. This would help her Dark Weaver stay alive early on.

It was actually quite important to Pickapart to use a shield - the path she was planning to meet up with her Monstrous Character was not safe, and since she did not have time to battle she could only run away while tanking hits if she couldn't avoid a monster's path. A shield could mean the difference between life and death in that situation, until she ran far enough out of aggro range.

Pickapart ran through a hall into a large room that served as an armory, and up to the NPC in it. Weapons were strewn about haphazardly in various states of repair, there were several piles of rusted and broken swords, for example. They were weapons picked off those attempting to assault the crypt in which the Dark Weavers stayed, though those enemies were also NPCs.

Fighting with mass amounts of poorly trained soldiers against enemies that could cast AoE spells, it was just asking to die.

The only reason the Dark Weavers could not run out and defeat the enemies with their own skill were enemy archers in position to shoot whoever exited. Normally a player would need to do several of the tutorial classes to level up in the area before leaving for this reason, but that was another benefit of the shield, it would allow at least enough time to run away from those archers, too.

The NPC in question was a muscular elf with torn sleeves of his dark robe, his hood down and glaring at Pickapart as she approached. Above his head was the name [Trinnaveck].

“I was told to get a weapon,” said Pickapart, which was the phrase to trigger the quest. Normally one would need to do other quests first to be told to get a weapon, but the player would only be told to say this phrase, they could entirely skip that and say the phrase directly if they were aware of it. Pickapart's voice was high and cheery, matching her bright orange fur and smiling face, but was an odd fit for the crypt.

“Annoying." Trinnaveck sighed. “Just go to the pile of the weapon you want, I'll teach you how to use it. Take more than one and I'll turn you into rabbit stew.”

Guild Tree Online was a very advanced game, the NPCs could give customized insults based on player apperance, and much more.

Pickapart ran up to the shield pile and picked up a round shield, she wouldn't know the stats of the shield she got until she brought it back to Trinnaveck. There was a small possibility she would get an uncommon shield, but it was merely a bonus if she did, a common shield would serve her needs just fine.

There were also some players who posted rumors about ‘a friend’ picking up a rare shield, but none of them ever provided proof, so it was considered just a thing trolls would make up for fun. She ran back up to Trinnaveck and handed the shield to him.

He snorted and strapped it on. “Watch carefully, I'll only show you once,” he said, and began shadow sparring with the shield. It took about thirty seconds, during which the basic information on shield use entered Chan Si's head. From then on, although she could only be considered a beginner, she at least wouldn't make any obvious mistakes in how she used round shields. Trinnaveck took off her shield and and handed it back to her, saying, “I hope you understood that, now go away.”

Pickapart inspected the shield handed back to her to check its rarity and stats. Unfortunately is was only a common shield, but that was expected. It also provided no primary statistical bonuses, only the standard secondary statistical bonuses of round shields. She could not have gotten a more basic shield. She strapped it on immediately and ran out of the room.

Making it to the exit of the crypt, she stopped running and began walking up the large hall of steps. Running took stamina, first it would prevent natural stamina regeneration while doing so, and second it took 5 stamina per second, plus 1 stamina per second per level - with her stamina gain, she would actually be able to run less each level, not more.

Pickapart could only run for 11 seconds at the moment before needing to walk to recover stamina, and she wanted to make sure she would have top stamina when she reached the outside, to get out of the line of fire of the archers.

She folded her big rabbit ears down so the archers wouldn't see her before she could see them, she wasn't trying to get her ears pierced.

The second she spotted the archers at the final few steps, she broke out into a full sprint, holding her shield out in front of her, but under her eyes so she could adjust it towards incoming arrows. Three archers let loose arrows at the same time.

The archers were some distance away, and travel time of projectiles was not instant in GTO. However, one's physical statistics could automatically correct arrow trajectory to improve hit chance against someone trying to dodge, unless the target had even better dodge chance.

For the weak, level one Pickapart, the best she could do was predict trajectory and speed to know what would not hit her in the first place, or what she would be able block with her shield, with any misses being more due to the enemy's own low level and inability to hit rather than her own skills.

Two arrows struck the shield dealing only 12 and 16 damage to her, while she managed to run out of the way of the third arrow. She abruptly changed directions to the left once she was out of the crypt, knowing it was the closest tree line from her research.

Another volley of arrows, four this time, raced towards her. She shifted her shield to her side. One missed her completely and one struck her shield for 20 damage, but two managed to catch her in the thigh and back, dealing 80 and 92 damage. She had taken 220 damage so far and had only 20 health remaining, any direct hit would kill her and there was a small possibility that even a strike to the shield would still do so.

She had gotten really unlucky on the damage rolls, the possibility of overall damage that high from that many shots striking was slightly less than one in a thousand. Yet, she was almost to the tree line. Some foot-soldiers were chasing after her, but they weren't as fast and wouldn't reach her, only the archers were a danger.

Pickapart began casting the Grasping Shadow spell in preperation for the third volley, targetting the closest foot-soldier.

Another four-volley went off, but she could tell three went wide, only one was going straight for her. She could raise her shield in time and risk the small possibility of death, but if she truly died here then she would drop her shield and be without it, forcing her to go through the various tutorial quests to level in order to be able to escape.

Chan Si would take chances, but she wouldn't take chances she didn't have to, so instead of blocking she finished casting Pickapart's [Skill], Grasping Shadow, pulling a foot-soldier towards her faster than the arrow, darkness trailing behind him. The foot-soldier landed with a plunk in front of her, and was struck by the arrow. This dealt no damage because allies couldn't hurt one another, but it still blocked the shot. By the time the soldier overcame his shock and wound up for an attack with his broadsword, Pickapart had already ran into the trees, escaping the situation.

In the forest, Pickapart hit zero stamina and began walking. She sighed and removed the arrow from her thigh and back, casually throwing them out. This dealt no damage, and neither the impact nor removing them were painful, she only had the general information that she had been hit. The game would transfer most sensation to the player, but not pain.

If Chan Si really wanted to she could hack the pods to properly cause real pain - she wouldn't even need to figure out how to do so on her own, there were tutorials on the net - but why would she? She wasn't some battle pervert who felt that real pain was required to engage her highest abilities, in fact pain would only distract her from thinking. She would leave the pain modifications to those who liked such things, and play the way that was best for her.

Her health situation was not good and it would regenerate very slowly, taking almost 92 hours unless she found some means of restoring it. Thankfully in this forest were level 1 passive wildlife, she could approach one and engage it battle, using a few casts of her [Light Pulling Weave] to regain health slowly, meanwhile blocking with her shield.

Unlike with the archers, a level 1 enemy she would be able to block the full damage of, and since she could focus on that almost entirely she shouldn't take any damage. She found a nearby deer and engaged in ‘fierce combat’ of lazily holding up her shield as it tried to flail at her and slowly absorbing its health through the Light Pulling Weave casts that would take five seconds each.

She casted one, starting the combat. Then five seconds later she had five health gained back, and a second one cast. Five seconds later, ten more health back, and a third. Fifteen health more, a fourth. Twenty more, a fifth, triggering the AoE that was unique to five copies of [Light Pulling Weave], [Light From Dark], which at level one healed 100 health in the AoE, with a Force multiplier of C, so Pickapart only got 100 health.

That was 150 health back so far, putting Pickapart up to 170. Instead of wasting more mana casting more Light Pulling Weaves, she triggered the early expiration of the pentagon, instantly healing up to her full health of 240, before running away from the deer. She could have finished it off with shield bashes, but it wasn't worth her time to do so, spending the twenty five seconds to heal herself was already inefficient enough, merely required in case she ran across bad luck.

If it were a proper healing class, they could have healed themselves to full in seconds, without pausing to engage in combat.

As for why Pickapart hadn't used Grasping Shadow to block other arrows, the angle wasn't right, the foot-soldier would have been pulled towards her at such an angle that the arrows would not have struck him. Precisely calculating the angle and speed of the ranged attacks, it was something very few people would be capable of, they would need to either be very experienced or very intelligent.

Even Chan Si would not have managed to do so with such speed and precision if she did not know the foundational basics of ranged weapons from the Ballista class!

Sometimes others who had a lot of money would do this, purchase multiple pods so they could establish a different character on each one to load up on several types of foundational basics. It was an extremely luxurious thing to do, Chan Si would not purchase additional pods to do this further, she had limited funds even with as much as she had laundered from what she had been paid by the United States Government.

Hacking for more funds was technically an option, but a highly risky one that could expose her to the AI. If she ran out of money in real life, her only realistic option would be to sell money in the game, which she did not want to do. Thankfully, her expenses were low, so she was at no risk of running out of money even if her plan took years, unless she had a huge unexpected expense or made an unwise purchase.

Pickapart was the first Dark Weaver to ever escape the crypt at level 1 without others engaging the forces outside, and without killing any enemies. Most people would not pick shield, and of those that would, they wouldn't be as skilled as Chan Si could be due to her intelligence.

Maybe others could have if there was a real reason for them to, but most did not have a grand plan that involved rushing out as soon as possible, and wanted to learn how to play such a complex class properly in any case, so they would do all the tutorial quests. And even if they picked something like Physical Focus on physique and rushed out at level 1, they would still want to kill enemies for experience and loot instead of running away.

Basically, it wasn't something people would do by accident, nor something they would have a reason to do on purpose. Unannounced to all, including Pickapart who was now deep within the forest, this was the criteria to trigger a specific game-altering scene.

===

“Sir, it seems the Dark Weavers sent out a scout, purpose unknown. Rabbitkin, female, orange fur. We attempted to intercept her but she managed to escape into the forest," a foot-soldier addressed his captain within the captain's tent, with a good bed, and books, and wine.

The captain's name was [Captain Griggory], he had a young but chiseled visage, and radiated a sense of self-importance. “Usually they just try to fight us. They didn't even attempt to distract us from the scout. Could the scout itself be a distraction? No, that's unlikely, what would they gain? Hmm." Captain Griggory rubbed his oversized chin. “I don't like this, they must be preserving their forces for an assault on our camp, and the scout is to gather allies for a pincer attack. We need allies of our own. Send a report to the capital, request reinforcements, the sooner the better. Make sure they send competent soldiers this time, I don't want new blood! As for the scout, write out her description and that she's carrying an item of critical war importance for the Dark Weavers."

“She is, sir?” the foot-soldier asked.

“I have no demigoddamn clue, recruit! But she could be, so it's better to say she is. Gets me more resources either way.”

===

Pickapart continued to run through the forest. Occasionally she would encounter a level 2 or 3 hostile monster, but she would block a single attack with her shield before running away, taking only a small amount of damage. She could not take the most direct route as the monsters were too strong, but she knew the shortest path she could take while encountering monsters only of these levels.

Every so often she would need to refill her health, in which case she would find another level 1 enemy and engage them for a short amount of time while she healed.

Despite this taking 25 seconds each time, it was still overall more time efficient that if she had spent her time leveling through the tutorial quests in the crypt so she could take the more direct route, or slaying monsters along the way on this weaker path. While that would have gained her experience, she actually wanted to remain at level 1 for working with her Monstrous Character, who would also be level one.

Just as there was an experience bonus to fighting higher leveled monsters, there were experience penalties as well. One of them came from fighting lower leveled monsters, which was an additive 2% penalty per level lower.

The second was also a 2% penalty, and it was for each level of difference between the highest leveled member of a party and the lowest level member of the party. Since the Monstrous Character had to be able to take hits for the Dark Weaver anyway, the Dark Weaver being a higher level would only allow for marginally better farming, and this would be negated and more by the experience penalty. It was better to be an equal level so their experience gain would be as high as possible.

Later when the party met up with each other, there was no doubt in Chan Si's mind that Gearme would be many levels above the others, but at that point Chan Si felt it was fine since Gearme's higher level would more directly correlate to taking on stronger enemies, allowing the higher leveled enemy bonus to make up for the player level gap. Plus, this would only be for a little while, and over time their levels would grow closer together due to the increased experience required each level.

In any case, Pickapart kept heading towards her designated place where she would intersect with the path of her Monstrous Character eventually, after logging in as the monstrous character and heading out. Although the Dark Weaver started the closest to the monstrous character starting location out of all the options Chan Si had, it would still take multiple hours to get there.

Still, it wasn't like there were any shortcuts to getting there faster, players needed to be level 100 before they gained access to any mounts, and although fast travel options did exist they were very expensive in the first place, and only the most expensive options could take a player to the area around the monster character starting location.

Eventually it was time to log in with the next character, the Light Fire Dual Elemental Master. In that time, Gearme had managed to level the Provisioner [Skill] to 18 and some change, only two levels away from the needed 20 for Chan Si's plan.

She entered the game once more.