Atlas waved at his fellow nurse, Cassandra, as she brought a patient back.
“Hey Atlas, can you enter their information while I get them checked in?” she asked.
Atlas covered the mouthpiece on his cell phone, “Will do.”
He removed his hand and resumed his conversation.
“Hey man. Sorry to interrupt you, but I’ve got to get back to work. I’ll catch you later.”
“See ya bud.” Keenan confirmed.
The afternoon passed far more slowly than he cared for, so he delved into his phone to help speed up time. Keenan mentioned one of the forum sites, and they had also scolded him for not researching any on them prior to coming into the event. He maneuvered back to the site he’d looked into earlier. Divine Genesis Fanatics displayed on the banner, and he noticed a bunch of notifications on his account. When he checked them, he was astonished to see over 100 upvotes for his post. A few even responded directly to thank him because they’d mastered their current addition because of his help.
The site had more guides posted on it now. He saw one major post pinned for each of the professions. The leatherworking one was just a basic description of the patterns up to level 15 in the skill. No real information on the skill in general. The Woodworking one was the same, so he didn’t bother checking any of the others.
A post caught his attention with its strange headline. The Corruption of Gaia. Intrigued by it, he tapped the link.
The Corruption of Gaia
Fellow gamers. Please be wary when you log into Divine Genesis. We’ve spoken with some devs who built the game and they acknowledged to us that they were forced to inject code into the game that didn’t appear to have anything to do with the game and it seemed malicious. They had to override certain safety protocols to do it. They couldn’t tell us what it was supposed to do, but they weren’t happy with it.
Humanity United
Humanity United? Never heard of them. A scroll through of the replies showed many people calling them conspiracy theorists. A few asked for proof of these claims, but they provided nothing. The thought baffled Atlas. Why would they mess with the game? With the real world market tie in, Gaia Corporation was bound to make a fortune on it. There would be no reason to do something so reckless.
Chalking it up to crazy people, he backed out of the post. Not seeing anything druid specific, he debated with himself. Do I share the information about transformations? Not sure if it’s a good idea. His feelings warred with himself before he finally posted. He wouldn’t give exact details of his character or name.
He started a new post named Druid Transformations. In this he detailed druids could choose one of three forms as they reached a higher level. In addition, he told them they could find rare crystals that granted them a transformation as well. He mentioned the Dire Bear transformation being one of them. His explanation also listed that there was a tiny chance for this item to drop from dire bears in the game, and any that were named had an even higher chance to drop the loot.
After a quick read through to check for spelling errors, he hit submit. He closed the browser on his phone and returned his attention to work.
***
His trip back to Gaia and into the game was very uneventful. Disappointment filled him when Jean wasn’t working as he came in. Instead of the normal small talk, he just hopped right in and they fired up the machine. His vision faded and blackness filled him before shifting back into his room at the inn.
Scooping up his belongs, he walked downstairs. A handful of people dotted the room, but no one he recognized, so he continued outside. His number one priority was to get to level 10 as fast as possible. He needed almost 500 experience to get there. Instead of grinding for countless hours on monsters, he scoured the city looking for quests.
It took him more than an hour, but he eventually found three quests to go on.
Quest - Exterminator
Requirements
• Level 7
Quest Rarity: Common
Quest Reward: 140 experience, 80 copper coins.
Description: Kill 6 wolves in the surrounding forest.
Quest - Jumboroots
Requirements
• Level 8
Quest Rarity: Common
Quest Reward: 150 experience, 90 copper coins.
Description: Collect 10 Jumboroots from the surrounding area.
Quest - A Strange Occurrence
Requirements
• Level 9
Quest Rarity: Common
Quest Reward: 160 experience, 1 silver coin.
Description: Reports of an odd location of rot northeast of the city warrant investigation. Determine why the rot has infected the area and stop it if possible.
Most were pretty straightforward. The quest with the rot could be interesting. If video games taught him anything, it was that rot usually meant an undead somewhere nearby.
The wolves and the herbs were just time-consuming. Those he grabbed as he found them. His trip started by heading for the reported location of the rot. During his trek, he spotted three of the Jumboroots and successfully harvested them. The large bulbs reminded him of the roots for elephant ear plants. As long as he dug around them far enough, they were easy to extract without harm. It also came with one other benefit during his gathering.
Success! You reach level 4 in Herbalism.
Two wolves crossed his path, and he dispatched them without trouble. When he neared the location of the rot, he slowed his pace. The change in the forest was negligible at first. A speck of mold here, a piece of discolored bark there. Before long, the patches of rot grew larger and larger until everything looked dead. The center of the phenomenon was a clearing in the trees. No grass grew and only dark dirt covered the space. The trees around the edge looked old and about to collapse. A slight push on one caused the trunk to crack and
