James woke up to the alarm he had set on his phone. He rubbed the sleep from his eyes and went to check on Reo, only to hear heaving coming from what he assumed was the bathroom. He knocked on the door. “I’m going to assume you won’t make it into work today. You should drink lots of water when you drink just so you know.” James turned to walk away only to hear the bathroom door creak open. There standing in the doorway steading herself with the door and counter was Reo, looking terribly disheveled.

She looked at him with a mixture of pain and amazement a vibrant smile across her face, “I thought that you would be gone since I didn’t see you in my bed when I woke up.” James absent mindedly responded, “In all honesty I would be home, but it was late, and I did not want to walk so I crashed on your couch.”

Reo’s smile dropped then her gaze dropped obviously disappointed. James turned back to face her, he wanted to comfort her, realizing he had said something he should not have. However, no matter how much he wanted to comfort her, he raised his hands only for them to seize up trembling and twitching. Like fighting a reflex, he wanted to reach out and hold her, but he did not think that was the right thing. He did not know; he had never been good with women.

Reo’s head lifted noticing first his silence and lack of movement, then his hands. She raised her head to look him in the eye, she was crying. She took her hand from the door reaching out to hold his hand. James’ hands ceased to tremble the conflict resolved. He took her hand in his, she took a step forward and grabbed his shoulder with her other hand. She looked him in the eyes with her beautiful emerald eyes, very similar to his own hazel eyes. In that moment something passed between them and he knew he had found someone to hold onto.

James leaned in for a kiss and Reo started to stand on the tips of her toes to reach, being as there was about a foot of height difference between them. The kiss was electric, and he knew she was the one. He picked her up bridal style and walked down the hall to her bedroom laying her once more on her bed.

“You just get some rest and when you feel better let’s talk about this.” He said holding her cheek with his palm, she once again looked disappointed, but also hopeful. He gave her another kiss, and another, then he stopped himself. “You should probably call in sick, its almost time for work.” He said looking at the clock, 7:40. Then it dawned on him.

“Shit I’m going to have to call in that I will be late if I don’t hurry!” He turned to make his way from the house but turned back to see Reo sound asleep softly snoring once again. He smiled once again pulling a blanket over her, he turned off the light and left the door to her room open.

The first call he made was to Mr. Takahashi. “Hello James, what can I do for you?” “Your assistant Reo won’t be coming into work today, she had a bit too much to drink last night. What I want to ask you is to not punish her harshly for it.” There was silence for several seconds. “Can I assume you are with her?” “I’m just leaving her house actually. I slept at her house due to how late we got in.”

“I see. She does have some sick days saved up. I will bring in my reserve assistant for the day. Thank you for informing me James. I have to go my meeting is about to start, Farewell.” “Good day.” James smiled as he heard the other line disconnect.

Now to call Takeda. James hit 1 on his speed dial. He did not have to wait long, three ring then he answered. “Hey James, where are you your going to be late?” “Yeah that is why I’m calling; I’m going to be late. About half an hour give or take. Alright but do not do this all the time, even if you know the head of the company. I will not tolerate tardiness.” Then he heard the click of the phone hanging up, followed immediately by the phone ringing.

“Yes, this is James.” “Sir are you alright, we arrived several minutes ago to take you to work but no one appeared to be home. Yeah I’m just around the corner at Reo’s house I…” “Say no more sir we will be there in a moment.” Then the line went dead.

James arrived at work 28 minutes late, thinking that was an awkward car ride. I had to explain to the that I did not sleep with Reo, worst yet they would not believe me.

James stepped out of the car trying to put the ride out of his mind. Today was the day he would make his first mark on the history of Yggdrasil.

He walked out of the elevator greeted by several of his co workers asking for his assistance on this or that. “Sorry I have other thing I need to do today.” Nothing will keep me from that dream.

He imagined it, wearing a set of red, white, and blue golem power armor with three maybe even more Caloric stone cores. An eagle helm complete with shades for added eye protection and swag. I will be immune to anything that is thrown at me. Now all he had to do was work out the details.

James meet with Subaru and they got to work. From what he saw at this point it would be months at least before he could get his power armor, but he had time.

James had several ideas to help improve the power armor so it could even be useful in the late game. The first of those ideas with instead of capping the armor at casting 10th tier spells, letting the armor cast super tier spells with a few prerequisite of course. And of course, you could bypass many of those requirements if you used a world item in the armor’s construction.

Through his work on this function he and the project team worked on making something unique for every world item you could make part of the armor. But this introduced a problem james had not thought about. If a World item is made part of a set of power armor, then it would no longer be part of the cycle.

To solve this James made it so that when a world item was used in a power armors construction it is returned to the cycle, to appear somewhere else for others to find. In its place an item of equal power and appearance would be left.

One of the people on the project asked if he could give an example. “Ok let us say you use Avarice and Generosity as an example. If you incorporate them into a set of power armor, visually they will become the gauntlets for the armor. It will have all the same powers, you would even then be able to edit it somewhat, but the actual item would reappear in the world somewhere.”

“How much should we allow them to edit the resulting, “pseudo” world item?” “It is technically still the real item, full protections of the normal world items, so you are immune to the effects of other world items while you wear it. To answer your question, we can allow the players to make some cosmetic changes to “pseudo” world items. Though players would now be able to add things to them, like gems to the knuckles, and such.” Having said that he recalled an image of Thanos wielding the infinity gauntlet, he would have to remember that.

The person returned to their work seemingly satisfied. James needed to balance that a little. “Making the item part of the armor, while it returns the original to the world that which is left is forever bound to the armor. Bound to it by the power of the world. So, you cannot make a farm of world items by building them into power armor and then removing it later. There should be a notice to players with this information if they try to do it.”

James noticed a large flaw that needed to be addressed. So, he and the other people on the team had to take the time to design what every world item would do when it was made part of a set of power armor. It was decided that players would not be able to incorporate many of the world items into a set of power armor, a lot of the weapons for example. World Items would be the best material to make an item out of, yielding an exceptional data limit all on their own.