We walked to the eastern edge of town, where I had come in from the south, we were walking out of a different entrance. There was a small wagon train of 3 covered wagons waiting for us. On the way out of the gate, Antivitz was telling me about the Naz’catec race and how they were around for a long time and spread all over the planet among all the other older races, such as Naga and their various classes and subraces. Antivitz walked up to what seemed to be the wagon train’s “leader”, so to speak, a human.

“Hey, Fred, you guys headed out to the Wastes?” he asked.

“Yessir, just about to head out, Antivitz. You need a lift to a dig out there?” Obviously Antivitz was well known. “Who’s this by the way?” Fred looked at me.

“I’m Z-uh, Setari.” I held out my hand but instead he leaned forward and clasped arms with me instead.

“Good to meet you, Setari. I take it Antivitz has taken you under his wing for Archaeology training. He doesn’t get many trainees so I’m sure he’s really- ugh!” Antivitz punched Fred on the arm with massive Dwarven strength.

“Shut yer trap, ye old jabberwocky. Let’s go get a seat in the back of one of the wagons.” Antivitz thumbed toward the back of the train. I followed Antivitz to the last wagon in the train, which was sparsely populated by one man already, an elf, mage by the looks of his red, gold embroidered robes and his staff, which came to a gnarled tip at the top and held a dull green orb inside the wood, almost like claws holding it on the top. He had no helmet or hat, which I thought odd, but I figured maybe having a hat or something all the time might be fairly uncomfortable. I removed my own helmet and sat it on my lap as well when we sat down. The game didn’t really create unbearable heat inside armor or anything but it depended on where you were in the game as well obviously, or what you were doing in general.

“So, Antivitz. How much do you know about my race?” I asked him, curious about the background of my race since the character creator gave me literally no background at all.

“Ah, a lot. I’ve based almost my entire life around the Naz’catec, though a little Naga here, a little of every current race inhabiting Eir at the moment, Demons, et cetera. I’m always on the lookout to discover new races that have existed in the past, but I tend to just find a lot of Naz’catec stuff. But it’s always extremely valuable wares, but then again I’m a Master of Archaeology-”

“So everything you find basically turns to gold in your hands, haha, I got it. What’s the least amount of racial stuff you’ve found? Or a better way to say it, what’s the “rarest” race you’ve-”

“Ho! Let’s go boys, time’s a wastin!” I heard someone bellow from in front of the wagon train, and the train started moving along the bumpy dirt trail.

“My question stands, heh.” I finished my question.

“Well, let’s see. I’ve found a decent amount of racial Demon things as well as a lot of Elven relics, but for stuff that’s really deep in the ground it’s mostly Naz’catec and Demon. Human relics tend to be already hidden away in a monastery or something, they tend to keep hold on those pretty tight, but I’ve found a few as well that I have cleaned up and such in my shop. I’d say Naga artifacts are the rarest as most of the stuff they used was from the earth and soulbound to most of them so when they died, their items went back to the earth.” That was the first I’d heard of Nagas not creating normal weapons and stuff and conjuring items from the earth.

“Were Nagas evil? There’s a… general stereotype where I come from that Nagas are evil in general.”

“Lad, there’s no such thing as evil or good, only actions.” He paused in thought. “But no, here on Eir there was the occasional war of course, as the amount of armaments I’ve found in some places is astounding, but as I said, most Naga equipment was conjured. Nagas were extremely well off at conjuring and enchanting and illusionary things, so much so that they could construct whole buildings and towns on the weight of a couple Nagas’ mana pools since they were such huge mana pools. Entire towns had been completely wiped off the map with almost no trace due to this as well. I’ve found traces of Naga civilization of course but it was always random items like scale pickers or various modeled cups and stuff, stuff that might have been actually produced instead of conjured.”

I nodded in thought. We both sat across from each other in the wagon for a very long time in silence after that, me staring out the back end of the wagon at the passing scenery and him at the floor or out the wagon as well.

“Have you been to the Wastes often? Wherever that is?”

“Aye, I go out there every week. I’ve canvased a lot of the area myself for artifacts and have found pretty much everything in those canvased areas as well.” I pulled up my map and next to it, what I didn’t notice before, or just didn’t pay enough attention, probably the latter more than the former, were tracking buttons for certain professions. I hit the button that said “Track” and it dropped down into “Minerals” or “Archaeology”. I tapped Archaeology and nothing happened to my immediate map. I zoomed out and saw the entire continent divided into sections, each section had its own name, but “The Wastes” took up the majority of the continent, smack in the middle of it. It seemed whatever happened in the Wastes, the continent never recovered from. Above, on the map, it said “Continent: Sher” and underneath it said “Level 1 Continent”. I took it this was the basic starting continent. It was huge. I zoomed in on The Wastes on the map but it was all dark as was basically my current map for the current region, which was named Nare. The region we were heading toward where Antivitz had placed a waypoint for was named Gor. I’m sure there was some Orcish history behind that name, most likely, surprisingly nobody seemed to want to change it, from what I had heard.

“Antivitz, do you know why this region is named Gor?” I asked him. This guy was a wealth of knowledge and I could not let my questions go unanswered.

“Eh, something about some Orc hero during some war back in the day who was named Gor’gron or something like that-”

“Gor’geron.” The elf in the carriage cut Antivitz off as he was speaking. “His name was Gor’geron.”

“Ah yeh, right, I suppose you’re right, yes,” Antivitz fumbled with his hammer, which was laid across his lap, taken aback by the interruption. “Gor’geron. Apologies, to be quite honest, I don’t care much for Orcs, they’re an okay type, I suppose.”

I looked at Antivitz. “Bad blood between Dwarves and Orcs? Who would have thought…” I muttered to myself. I looked at the Elf. “Do you know anything about Gor’geron, sir, that you wouldn’t mind sharing?”

“Considering I’ve based my whole life around that war and the events that were in it, not particularly. It’s my general line of work.” He sighed.

“Not that anyone has much need for a historian nowadays. Once in a while I get invited to a college to give advice on the war and the races involved, or to give a lecture, but there is only so much to talk about, about The Great War, I mean.” He paused.

“Gor’geron was a grand tactician in the war, working with the other races alongside his own to bring down the abominations that were the Naga/Demon/Naz’catec hybrids created by the Naga. At the time there were just the Elves, Orcs, Dwarves, Demons, Naga and Naz’catec making up the majority of the races on the planet. There were general avian races as well as giants and the like but they made up a small percentage of the world’s population-”

“Oh, those avians… the Elea?”

“No, they rose after the war, though the Elea are around today, but the Elea’nor are the ones I was talking about. Anyway, there were other races around and they assisted in the war with the Elves, Orcs and Dwarves, generally referred to as the “Allied Races”, for the time. Humans weren’t around yet as well, if you haven’t guessed. The sad thing is some of the smaller races people did side with the, for purposes here, “Evil-” he made air quotes, “-races for the promise of power.

Unfortunately magical technology progressed to the point where magical warfare was almost strictly forbidden, due to the way magic could be used. However, the Evil races didn’t care and used magic without restraint.

The Wastes were previously part of larger pieces of Gor, Neir, and Azutec, and they all touched borders in The Wastes, as old maps have pointed out. But something happened in The Wastes that obliterated the giant armies that were there and turned the war on its head.” He paused again.

“We think that it was some kind of giant magical bomb, if you will, that wiped out the remaining forces of the majority of the races, but all we have to go on is that The Wastes are just a gigantic crater, for that theory. We don’t really know for sure, and I doubt we ever will.”

“Great bedtime story,” Antivitz huffed. “Still didn’t answer my friend’s question, why was this region named after Gore’geron?”

“Generally, he was an excellent soldier and tactician, and defended this entire region from mostly Demon invasion with his Orc divisions. Gor is a big place just as it was back then, and he didn’t lose one fortress to the Demons, much less any cities or towns.”

“Aren’t Orcs generally a race that thrives in war?” I asked.

“That’s a general stereotype. They’re fearsome fighters, but they’re just like you and me in a common sense.” I nodded, that figured. “Ever since the Players started showing up and working together with each other, there have been no quarrels between any race. Sure you have a spat here and there but nothing huge, though the Players are a real pain in the behind, no offense.”

“None taken,” I said. “I’m sure a lot of them are extremely stubborn people.” We talked some more about the world’s history in general, Antivitz learning a thing or two as well. Eventually we all just fell asleep in our seats, and I was dreaming of all the artifacts I was going to find.